"It's happening again."
"Eh?" Jack mumbled. "What time is it?"
He was half-way out of the seat, one arm stretched, fingers fiddling for his watch on the side table. Papers were scattered on his knees and at his feet. The room had gone cold since he'd dozed off.
"I saw it." Lorna Breck's voice, all shaky and urgent. "It's hunting again."
"Wait, hold on a minute. Slow down." He brought the watch up, peered at the dial. It was nearly eleven. He'd only been asleep for half an hour, sprawled in the chair, but he'd been down deep. The jangling of the telephone had jarred him out of it, but he still felt as though he was swimming for the surface of wakefulness. He shook his head, tried to speak, but a yawn stretched out the first word and made in incoherent. When it was spent, he tried again.
"Yeah. Go ahead."
"I saw it again." Lorna Breck blurted. "I wasn't asleep this time and I saw it. It's killing people. Or it's going to kill them."
Jack broke through the surface and came completely awake. Oddly enough, his mind took a lateral step. And we'll find O'Day tomorrow, was the first thing he thought. There was no point in taking any chances, despite his scepticism of what Andy Toye called the supra-normal. Lorna Breck was clean. He'd had her checked out. Maybe, Jack thought, maybe she did get a buzz or a twitch, or some sort of second sight, and if she did, he would use it no matter what anybody said.
"Where?" he asked.
"I don't know," she said, talking fast. "In a big place. There were echoes. It came down through a hole and got them. I can still see it."
"What do you see?"
"A big square hole on the ground. There's something lying there. Like a bike. Yes. It is a bike. It went down through there. I can hear it, like an animal in a cave."
"What else can you see?" he asked, not taking the time to be surprised at his own question.
"A cellar. Somewhere big and dark. There's shelves. It has one of them. Two of them. Oh, there's blood all over, and the smell is choking." She broke off and he heard a strangled cough, harsh and metallic in the line."I can feel it's hunger. It hates them all. It wants them all."
"What else?"
"There are two others. They're running away. Climbing back up on the shelves. I can feel their fear. Oh, they're terrified. They know it will get them. They're going up towards the hole. One of them is crying and the other is pushing him. Oh, Mr Fallon, they're only boys."
There was a dead silence. Jack was about to urge her on. Lorna sounded as if she was talking in her sleep, or giving a scene by scene account of a war atrocity. He could hear the emotion squeeze at her voice.
"Now, he's outside. I can hear his feet. Like drums. The other one is coming. It's right behind him. Oh my. Oh no. He can't get out."
She broke off again, but her breathing continued, rasping and panicky.
"Lorna, keep talking," Jack ordered.
"It has him. The other one is trying to pull him out. But it has him. I can see his face. His eyes are looking at me. He knows."
Then she wailed right into Jack's ear.
"Oh, please no. Oh god. It's pulling him down. He can't hold on. He's crying. The pain in his leg. It's tearing him apart."
Jack was struck silent with the intensity of her running commentary. There was no doubt in his mind that she believed what she was seeing. On the other end of the line, the girl whimpered. He could picture her, eyes tight closed as she held on to the vision no matter what the cost.
"It's coming now for the other one," she said softly, almost eerily slow. "I can see it coming out."
"What does he look like?"
"It's black. You can't see it properly. Just a shadow, but it moves. Like a spider. It's reaching for the boy. He is stepping towards it. Oh, please!" Her cry soared up an octave and almost deafened Jack. "Get back. Get away! Its eyes. Don't look in its eyes." This came out in a screech.
Another pause, then she started again. "There's something in his hand. Like a gun. It makes a noise. It's..."
Another silence. "..in its eye. He's hurt it. It's snarling. The boy, he hurt it. And it's hurt him. On his hand."
Jack heard the sharp intake of breath. "Now it's going back. He's beat it and it's getting away. He's got to go. It will come back. It will come for him. I can feel it."
Then she screamed at the top of her voice: "Run. Run away. For God's sake run!"
The cry was long and drawn out and rang in Jack's ears so loudly his hand jerked the receiver away from the side of his head. When he pulled it back, there was nothing but silence.
"Lorna?"
The silence continued for a while, then he heard her breathing.
"Lorna? Are you all right?" It was a stupid question and he knew it.
"Hold on. I'll come over. I'll be there in ten minutes."
He clattered the receiver down on the cradle, brushed the rest of the papers onto the floor and shoved himself out of the seat. He was still wearing the clothes he'd had on all day and his hair was standing up in corkscrews, but he had no time to notice or care. He hauled his shoes on then reached for his coat which was still slung over the back of the other chair and shrugged his arms into the sleeves. A minute later he was easing out of the narrow drive and down Cargill Farm Road, heading for the other side of town. A harsh rime of frost had opaqued his windscreen and the wipers at full strength fought a game but futile battle to scrape it away, though there was just enough of a clear space above the wheel to let him see out. He shot a red light at the bottom of the hill where the road crossed over the through-town carriageway and gunned down towards Strathleven Street.
He had to knock on the door several times before Lorna Breck replied, asking tremulously who was there. The locks clicked and she opened the door a fraction. He saw one eye peer out then she opened the door fully. Her face was so white the smattering of freckles looked as if they were painted on, and she held a dressing gown tight round her as if huddled for warmth. He stepped into the house and as he went past her, the girl swayed and she started to droop as if the last of he strength had gone. He turned quickly, got an arm around her waist and held her upright. Against him he could feel the shivery vibration of her body, like a top guitar string wound up close to snapping point.
He eased her into the room, sat her down, then without a word, went through to the kitchen and put the kettle on. In the two minutes it took for it to boil, she said nothing at all. He made two cups of instant, spooned plenty of sugar in both, then took them through and made her drink one of them, holding the cup for her because her hands were shaking so violently she would have scalded herself. He waited patiently, sitting in the opposite armchair that he'd pulled across until their knees were almost touching, until she'd finished the drink, sipping his own coffee in alternate shifts. It did him some good and seemed to be helping her.
Finally, he put both cups down and leaned forward.
"You're alright now," he said, wondering where to start. "You're safe."
"Nobody's safe," she said flatly. Her grey eyes swivelled up towards him, glistening in the light of the side lamp. "Not until they kill it. I don't know if anybody can."
He took her through what she'd said she'd seen, and despite her reluctance, her repugnance, she went over it, again and again. One thing he knew for certain. If the killer had struck tonight, she had the perfect alibi.
"I don't know when, and I don't know where," she said.
"I saw it on the top of the roof with something in its hands. It happened on the night before they found the dead man hanging from the rope. It threw him off. It just hit him and hurled him away. I now think I saw it when it happened."
She drew in her breath in a stutter, the way small children do when they've been crying. "But when I saw it on River Street, that was before it took the baby. I just don't understand it. There's no reason why it's me who sees these things, and I don't want any of this."
"Take it easy," Jack said as soothingly as he could.
"I can't," she snapped back. "It's killing me too." She looked up at him again, wide eyes brimming, and toughed her hand to the centre of her chest. "Killing me in here."
He leaned forward and took both of her hands into his, kneading them gently. They were soft, and despite her shivering, surprisingly warm. But as soon as he touched her, she jerked back as if she'd handled a live wire. Her eyes snapped wide open and she drew in her breath in a sharp gasp.
"What's the matter now?" he asked, alarmed, wondering if he'd hurt her.
The girl's mouth opened and closed dumbly. No sound came out. She looked as though she was taking some kind of seizure. She held that pose for several seconds, looking like somebody kicked in the belly, before her breath came back. She let it out in a long, slow exhalation.
"Are you alright?" he asked again. She shook her head, very slowly, then raised her eyes up to him. They were huge and the swimming tears spilled out and onto her cheeks.
"She felt no pain," Lorna said softly. Her hands clasped tightly on Jack's fingers.
"Pardon?" he asked, perplexed.
"The little girl. There was no hurt, no pain. There was no time."
"What do you mean?"
"I saw it. I don't know why and I don't know how." The whole tone of her voice had changed. Now there was no fear there, only a gentle compassion. "It was your daughter, wasn't it?"
Jack's heart dropped into his belly. He could feel the skin crawl eerily on his back.
"I don't understand," he said, trying to keep his voice neutral. The girl kept her eyes fixed on his, face placid behind the sparkling lines of her tears.
"You've blamed yourself for not being there. You keep seeing her over and over again. But it was not your fault. It was too quick for her and she felt no pain. Your wife and your daughter, they are at peace. I know it. You can let them rest."
"How on earth..." he blurted, but she squeezed his hands in a strange reversal of roles.
"I don't know how. When I touched you, I could see it. I saw what you see, but there was more. I could feel them. I can feel them."
She smiled at him, very gently and the pinched, harried look was gone. In that brief second, she was beautiful.
"They are with you, and forever. Not in pain and anguish, but in love. I can see them smiling at you."
It was her turn to lean forward.
"They want you to forgive yourself. I can feel the heat of their love and the strength of their peace."
Jack tried to pull away, horrified at the emotions which were twisting inside him, but she held onto him with surprising strength.
"I don't know how, and I don't know why," she said softly, but insistently. "Something has happened to me, something terrible. I see all these dreadful things and they frighten me because I know they are true and they are happening. But now I can see other things as well."
She leaned back and drowned him with her eyes.
"If there is a bad, then there must also be a good, I think."
"But it can't be possible," Jack said. He felt as if he'd been hit a dull blow to the side of his head.
"I don't know what is possible. I've got this curse, but maybe part of it is a miracle. Maybe, if you help me to be brave, I can help you."
Jack sat there, transfixed by the small slim girl with the lilting voice, completely thrown off balance. He didn't know what to think. She was either completely crazy or he was. And the crazy thing about it was, he wanted to believe she was completely sane. Because that would mean that everything she said was true.
The last train pulled in from the city at eleven thirty. Kenny McIntyre, the one-man stationmaster, ticket-collector and occasionally porter, was down in the Horse Bar having a drink to drown his woes. His wife Isobel had told him she was three months pregnant and that was the last thing he'd wanted to hear. The odd thing about it was that he could not remember having done it with her for a while. She'd had a severe case of leg-lock for months as far as he could recall, and he'd wondered about the possibility that she might have found another man. Kenny, bull-necked, red haired and pot-bellied, had dismissed the notion. She was stuck up in the flat in Loch View all day. There was no opportunity for her to be getting a leg under anybody else, and anyway, she had never been that adventurous in bed. He eventually assumed that he'd knocked her up one night after a couple of hours and several beers in the pub. Maybe he couldn't remember, but he wished he had. He wondered how it had been for him. He also wondered how he was going to cope with a squawling kid in the tiny flat. That was going to make life hell, and it was just as well he was on the night shift. His late hours also meant that he missed the violence of Isobel's morning sickness, which was a blessing. Of the hirsute and surprisingly athletic man from Housemarket Supplies, he knew nothing, even though she was still inviting him into the house and into her body every week.
The train came in, but Kenny stayed in the bar. At this time on a Wednesday night, there would be few passengers, not enough to worry about the odd one or two who might have skipped on a train without a ticket. There would be no inspectors to wonder about why he wasn't at his stall. The floor of the bar vibrated as the train pulled away. A few minutes later, two young men with wearing football colours came staggering in, happy as larks, each holding the other upright. Obviously their team had won a midweek fixture. Despite their condition, the barman let them have a drink. Kenny McIntyre ordered another whisky and sat alone at the end of the bar, cursing his luck.
Up at the station, raised thirty feet above the road, Sandra Mitchell and Walter Dickson, whose grandfather ran the newsagents shop on River Street sat in the waiting room, entwined in each other's arms.They'd been kissing non-stop during the thirty-minute journey and had failed to notice the prim and elderly woman sitting opposite who had glared at them in reproof the whole time. They only came up for air when the train had stopped at Levenford and they had only just made it onto the platform before the doors scissored shut. It was a freezing night and in the cold air, their breath clouded out in front of them. Walter guided the girl into the waiting room, an old, red-brick building with a dirty fireplace which hadn't been lit in years and a stained wall the colour of bile which was hieroglyphed with graffiti. He pulled her down onto a slatted seat and jammed his mouth on hers, sliding his hand inside her coat and cupping his palm round the yielding warmth of her breast. She gave a little moan, squirmed in half-hearted protest, then pushed herself against the pressure. The Lochend train came in ten minutes later, a clatter of sound and a flicker of passing lights as it headed, empty, back to the terminus.
Walter's hand eased out from the warmth and sneaked down to her knee. Without hesitation he brought it up the inside of her thigh, feeling he smooth nylon slide under his fingers. The girl stiffened, closed her legs and trapped his fingers. She pulled away.
"No, Wattie. Not here."
"But there's nowhere else to go," he protested. She had three brothers and a sister and parents who would kick up a stink if they thought she'd let Walter Dickson near her. He was an only child of parents who went to church every Sunday and would bring hell and damnation down on his head at the merest hint of anything pre-marital, and anyway, they did not approve of young Walter's choice of girlfriend.
"But we're still not doing it," she said sharply.
"I've got something," Walter responded earnestly.
"I don't care. Somebody might come." She wriggled away from him and stood up to adjust her clothes. Inside she could feel the need begin to burgeon, but if she did it with Walter, then she wanted it to be nice, not on a slatted bench in a filthy waiting room which smelled of stale piss and smoke, and for some reason, freshly peeled oranges. He got to his feet and pulled her against him. She could feel him hard against her belly and the desire flared.
"No. Not here," she protested, but it came out weakly, almost a whine."
"Where then? We could go to Billy's."
Billy was Walter's cousin, who lived in Miller Road, only two down from where young Neil Kennedy's family were existing in miasma of grief and fading hope. He had a flat with a little box room. There was a possibility he'd let them in there for an hour.
"I don't know. I'd be embarrassed."
"Don't worry. He'd never say anything. Billy's always got girls in there."
She needed some more persuasion, so he kissed her again and slid his hand inside the coat again, fumbling for the nipple. She stiffened against him, making little undulating motions with her hips. When he thought he'd worked at it enough he pulled back, still kneading with his right hand.
"How about it," he said thickly.
"Alright," she whispered back, voice now hitching with the rising urge. He have her a quick hug that told her she'd made the right decision and they walked out of the waiting room onto the deserted stand. They made their way to where the exit ramp dived down in the centre of the raised area, between the two tracks. Out in the dark in the west, a train clattered in the distance. The couple were about to walk down the slope when a shadowy figure came towards them along the platform. Sandra heard the scrape of footfalls and twisted round, still holding on to Walter.
"What's that?"
Walter turned. A man was walking slowly, dragging his feet on the concrete close to the edge. He stumbled, caught his balance and came on.
"Just a drunk," Walter said. "Couldn't bite his finger by the look of him."
The stranger came closer, lurching from side to side. They could hear him muttering to himself. Behind them the train rumbled louder as it crossed the bridge.
The man came staggering towards them and Sandra shrank back. Walter eased her to the side, leading her towards the exit.
"Nowhere else," the stranger mumbled, weaving awkwardly. He looked as if he was blind. His coat flapped behind him and his clothes looked several sizes too large. His face was gaunt and haggard. "Can't stop it. Nowhere else to go. Bastard."
He lunged up towards the boy and girl, pale face agape.
"Bastard was in me." The words came out in a blurt. "Dirty now. Nothing left."
"Get away," Walter said. He held a hand up and pushed the weird stranger away. The man didn't even seem to notice. It was as if he hadn't even seen them.
"Don't want to," he slobbered. "Don't want to do it." He stopped, swayed.
"Can't stop it. Nowhere else to go. Bastard."
The train came roaring across the bridge with a rythmic clatter of wheels, the night mail from Mallaig away up in the north, nearing the end of its run down through mountains and moors on the West Highland Line.
In the cab of the diesel, Tom Middleton was leaned against the window, peering ahead through the viewhole, one brawny hand curled on the dead man's handle. The lights of the station hove into view. It was close to midnight and the lights were all on green as they should be. On the mid-day run, if he was driving, he'd hit the whistle to let the train scream through, but at night, it was against the rules, unless he spotted something on the track. The first lights of the platform flickered past, then something black fluttered right in front of the train. There was a very muffled flump and something flew past the window. A high scream sounded mutely then dopplered away as the train thundered past the station. The engine was well beyond the east slope of the platform by the time Tom reacted. He lifted his hand from the lever and the brakes bit. He could feel the wheels grind against the track, his whole body thrown forward against the plate and the cabin was filled by the screeching sound of distressed metal. The train shuddered on, the carriages slamming against the buffers and careered in ever slowing progression as far as the automated signal box, almost a quarter of a mile along the track.
The scarecrow man had reeled away when Walter had pushed him, oblivious to his surroundings. He turned and they got a look at his face. It was completely devoid of expression, the slack, sagged face of a dead man. The night train had come thundering into the light behind him and an odd grimace had contorted the man's face.
His eyes opened wide and his wet mouth had closed. He turned away from them and took two faltering steps forward. The noise of the train was almost deafening, but Sandra clearly heard the man shout.
"No. I don't want... "
And then he was running forward on the edge, too close to the lip. He leapt out over the track, both hands stretched out at his sides like a figure on a crucifix and the train smashed into him with a sickening sound.
Walter's hot desire collapsed. Sandra's urge evaporated in that single second.
Everything happened in slow motion. The man was in the act of leaping, coat flapping behind him, his white hands out as if to embrace a lover. The train caught him full on the body. Something flew off and tumbled into the air, whirling over their heads. The stranger was thrown forward right into the air. They followed his progress in the fragment of time it took for the train to rocket past. He was up over the platform, tumbling and twisting like nothing human, like a bunch of rags, then he was down. The huge wheels whirred on and over. They couldn't possibly have heard anything, but both of them later swore that when the wheels ran over him, there was a crunching sound. They heard it in their dreams for weeks after that.
The train crashed onwards with a rumble-and-thump as the wheels racketted on the joins.
"Jesus fu..." Walter said. He took a step forward, another two steps back, then went round in a complete circle, still holding on to the girl who was completely rigid, both hands up at her face. Above them, something thumped onto the sloping roof. He looked up in time to see an object strike the old gutter then tumble to the ground. It hit the concrete with a solid thud.
"Did you see..." Walter began again. He turned to Sandra who was still standing motionless, mouth open, eyes bugging out. "He just jumped. Jeez... He bloody well..."
Sandra slowly started to move, like a sleepwalker coming out of a dream. Her hands turned, thumbs out, palms up and she swivelled her head towards Walter. He was still doing his weird little dance of complete and utter indecision when he finally spoke.
"Blood. It's his blood," she whispered incredulously.
Walter took a step towards her. Her hands were still out, but they were shaking violently as if she had a severe case of palsy. She slowly brought them down and showed them to Walter. They were red with blood. Then she looked at her sleeves and the front of her coat. There were huge splatters all down one side. On her shoulder, there was a thick red gobbet of something the same colour, but which didn't look like blood at all.
"Walter," she whimpered. "Oh, Walter, I'm covered in blood."
He seemed to snap out of his indecision. He reached out and took her by the arm, not wanting to get too close to all the blood, not realising that the side of his coat was also saturated. He pulled her away from the platform, turning her round to go down the ramp to the exit, feeling the nerves kick and jitter behind his knees. He just wanted away from there. She allowed herself to be led meekly, still holding her hands out. They went round the pillar at the end of the barrier. The thing that had fallen from the roof was lying at their feet. He looked down and looked away before it registered, but Sandra's senses were tuned right up to perfect pitch. She stopped dead, mumbled something, then fainted clean away. He caught her just before she hit the ground, bending down to scoop her flopping weight up into his arms. When he was still crouched, his face was only two feet from the pale hand which lay palm up, fingers half-curled, still inside the torn sleeve of coat. In that instant of time, when the whole world had taken on the peculiar sluggishness and everything had gained the sharpness of supernatural clarity, he noticed the little bird on the end of the second hand, walking round the rim of the watch still strapped to the bony wrist.
"Woodstock," he said, very clearly, though he could not remember the name of the dog in the baseball cap whose face was printed on the flat dial. He lifted the girl into a carry-hold and walked down the ramp, through the tunnel and out into the street. He made it across to the Horse Bar, shouldered the door open, put the girl down on the bench seat nearest the door, turned round to speak, and vomited the pizza with anchovies she'd paid for after the cinema.
The two drunks at the bar turned round and gawped stupidly.
"He's had enough," one said to the other, and they both dissolved into a helpless fit of giggling.
Jack Fallon was in a state of complete confusion when he left Lorna Breck's house an hour after midnight. He was nonplussed, baffled, bamboozled. His mind was reeling from conviction to uncertainty and back to convinced certainty. He had to go and sit in the car for five minutes before he felt clear-headed enough to drive.
Their roles had reversed without any warning. She had been in a state of complete panic, bordering on collapse. Her whole body had been trembling and her face was slack and drained. Then he'd held her hands and it was if something had jolted between then and sent a shock wave through her nerves. When she'd started to speak, her voice had lost its brittle edge and she'd spoken to him like a mother comforting a child.
"I knew there was something when I first saw you," she said. I didn't realise what it was. When you helped me in the street, I sensed something, but it felt like danger, like death. That's why I couldn't speak. I was so scared. I thought you were a part of it."
"Part of what?"
"Of what's happening in this town," Lorna said, still holding his hands tightly.
"But I am part of it," he said wearily. There were too many things going in. He felt like a circuit that was in danger of overloading. Thoughts were sparking and jumping, half formed, hard to catch. "I want to stop it."
"I know. I know now. But then I sensed something terrible from you, just for a second, but when you helped me into the shop, you were so gentle that I knew it couldn't be you."
"I don't understand any of this," he admitted.
"Me neither, but I'm trying to," Lorna said earnestly. "I really am. I can't help any of this. My granny said I had a better gift than her because I was a seventh child."
"You've got family?"
"Four brothers. There were two more, twins, but they died at birth."
"I've heard all that about seventh children. I don't believe it."
"And neither do I. But I have to believe in this, because I can't escape from it. It's as if something is locked in to my head, like a radar or something. I didn't realise until the fire that I'd been seeing it before."
"Before what?"
"Before the fire. Those terrible dreams, really awful ones. I kept seeing those people in a room, all of them around a table. Not good people, sick folk. They were doing something and I didn't know what it was, but I knew it was wrong. Then the room went dark and something came."
"Something came?" Jack realised he was repeating the last words of her sentences too often.
"That's the only way I can describe it. Something came into the room in the dark. They brought it. They called it up. I don't know what they did, or how they did it, but they called it up and it was inside them. It was cold, terribly cold, like ice inside them, because they had opened themselves up and called it."
"And then what happened?"
"It's a bad thing. Evil. They didn't know what it was, and I don't either. But it came out and I could feel the bad in it. It was like sin. It was dark and the thing came and everybody started screaming and it was coming to get me and I was screaming too and we fled down the stairs."
"Can you describe this place?"
"An old room. There were lots of ornaments and there was an old woman. She was small, with a funny accent, like German or something. They all took the cards off the table first and then they put their hands on a stone and the wind came blowing through them all and they brought the thing in to them."
In his mind's eye, Jack saw a group of people round the table at Marta Herkik's home. Was that how it started. As soon as he thought that, he realised he was starting to believe what the girl said, then realised he'd already started to believe it before now.
"And what you said before, about me. Where does that come from?"
"I don't know. It was like when I held hands with poor Agnes. It was like part of her came in to me and then I could see it. Her children were dying and I could feel the fear and pain. I could see it there too."
"You're saying this thing was there?"
She nodded placidly, eyes still fixed intently on his. "I didn't know then, but I'm sure now. That was one of the first times I'd seen it. It was just a shadow, but it was moving among the smoke. The baby saw it and she started to scream."
"So why didn't you mention this before?"
"I thought I was dreaming. I didn't know what I was seeing. And anyway, who would have believed me? I didn't even believe it myself."
"And what you said, about my girl?"
"I don't know how that happens either, but it happens. It's from you. It's like you've got this big charge stored up inside you, like a battery. That's what it felt like, what it feels like now."
She squeezed his hands in hers. The touch was warm and gentle.
"There's a big dam in your heart. You know it too. All the pressure has built up because you can't let the sorrow out. You've a good heart Mr Fallon."
"Jack," he said, almost automatically. It was impossible to sit in front of this girl with her rumpled dressing gown, holding his hand, and having her call him mister.
"I know," she said, with a hint of a smile. "You've a good heart, Jack. It's the only good thing I've felt for a long time. But you have to let the pain go, and let them be at peace."
"Tell me, then," he said slowly. He suddenly felt very vulnerable, like a child faced with shadows in the night.
She closed her eyes, and stroked her thumbs down the space between his own thumbs and fingers. Her brow furrowed in concentration.
"Guilt," she finally said in a whisper. "Guilt and pain. The pain is yours. Jewellery. I see jewellery."
"Jewellery?" he repeated automatically.
"Yes. No jewels. Sparkly jewels, all bright."
Jack's heart kicked over slowly.
"Jules. Sparkly jewels. I wrote that on her birthday card," he said, voice catching. "Her name was Julie."
"And your wife. I see sunshine. You called her that?"
"Her name was Rae."
She frowned harder. "You have a picture in your head. You've carried it around with you all the time and you take it out and show it to yourself. But it's a trick. It's not real."
Lorna's voice rose. "It's not true. You could not have helped them. Nobody could. They didn't see it coming. And then there was nothing at all, only peace. They are at peace now, and you can let them go."
Jack's heart did another lazy lurch inside his chest, as if it had held itself still and then did a double beat at once.
"They want you to be happy," Lorna said. "It's true. I trust you Jack Fallon. You trust me."
Close on to one o'clock in a bitterly cold night, Jack gunned the car up the hill the whole the length of Clydeshore Avenue, heading under the bare, spreading sycamores. He reached the top, changed gear and sped down the slope, past the old cemetery. The river mist lay in layers, like the set of an old horror film, oozing round the ancient tombstones on the other side of the wall. Jack was going too fast. On the turn, his back tyre slithered on black ice and he felt the rear swing out. He drove into it, headed for the brick wall on the river side of Keelyard Road, then the tyres bit and he fishtailed the car back on to the straight before he slowed down on the dark road and stopped the engine. His heart was beating much too fast.
"Christ," he breathed. His stomach had gone all shivery in the aftermath of the adrenalin hit. "I must be off my head," he said to himself.
He sat for a moment, started the engine, drove for twenty yards and a picture of little Julie's face came swimming out of the dark and danced in front of his eyes. She was smiling at him. The memory was hop-skipping on a sunny street, far from this chill winter, holding her mother's hand. He'd last seen them like that down on the shore, picking up shells. The vision was so strong that he almost waved to them. They were not lying in pools of blood, writhing in agony, cursing him for not being there, for not helping them.
They were smiling at him on a sunny day.
It was the first time since they'd gone that he's seen them like that in his mind.
He stamped on the brake and switched the engine off. The picture faded from the forefront of his mind and Jack Fallon leaned his head down on his arms. He screwed his eyes up against the smarting of sudden tears, holding himself tight. He sat there for a long time, seeing the street-lights through a wavery film as the pain and anguish and sorrow he'd held back, dammed up for all those years suddenly breached the walls, and flooded out.
Some time after that, the headlamps of his car came on again, picking out the filigree of the winter mist and his car came slowly over the old bridge and back into the centre of the town.