Midnight is a Lonely Place

LIII

Kate was lying on her face, her head cushioned on her arms, aware slowly that a small trickle of blood somewhere in the hair above her left temple had dried into a crust. How long she had been lying there she wasn’t sure, but in the interval she had grown very cold. Cautiously she raised her head, expecting to feel at any second an icy hand on her back, but there was nothing, just the long, lingering catch of the bramble which had scratched her head as she fell. Her hand closed in the mud, crisp now with incipient ice, and she realised she was shaking.

‘Paddy?’

There had been no sound since the gun went off. Her terror had led to paralysis of will. She could not move or speak. Some atavistic instinct told her that shamming death was her only protection. How long that state had lasted she didn’t know. She moved her hand slightly, trying to bring her wrist, with the narrow, gold watch, within sight without raising her head more than a few inches.

‘Paddy?’ She tried again, louder this time.

‘Here.’ His voice was muffled, but not too far away.

‘Are you all right?’

‘I think so. I’ve lost the gun. I fell.’ She could hear tears in his voice. ‘Has he gone?’

‘I don’t know.’ She raised her head higher, trying to see. ‘I think so.’

‘Where are you?’

‘Here.’ She rose cautiously to her knees, wishing she could stop herself shaking. She could actually hear her teeth chattering. ‘I’m here. Keep talking and I’ll see if I can find you.’ The light had nearly gone.

There was a rustling somewhere to her left. She swung round. ‘Is that you?’

‘Yes. I’m OK. Here.’ He clung to her for several seconds and she could feel the chill of his body against her own. ‘He’s gone,’ she whispered. ‘I can’t feel him around any more.’

‘Which way do we go?’ He pulled away from her and she could feel him grasping at his dignity almost as though it were armour, and shrugging it on again.

‘We should have brought a compass.’ She tried to make the remark light. ‘We can still follow the contour of the land, though. Keep going up.’

‘That doesn’t seem to work.’

‘Paddy, what else can we do? We can’t stay here all night.’ She had only just realised that it was snowing again; proper snow this time, light and feathery and relentless; a pale glimmer at her feet showed where it was settling.

‘Do you know any prayers?’

The question caught her by surprise. ‘Well, the Lord’s Prayer, of course, everyone knows that.’

‘That’s what one says to ward off evil, isn’t it? To keep him away.’

Kate reached out and took his hand. ‘We could say it together if it helps. You’re right. It’s supposed to keep evil spirits away. I’m not much of an authority on prayer.’

‘Or evil spirits, I expect.’ He forced a small laugh. ‘Do you know it in Latin? Pater Noster. All that. He must speak Latin if he’s a Roman. We don’t do Latin at my school.’ Again the strained little laugh. ‘It never crossed my mind that I might need it.’

May the gods of all eternity curse you, Marcus Severus, and bring your putrid body and your rotten soul to judgement for what you have done here this day.

Kate rubbed her face with her hands. The words were trapped in her brain. They were not external. If they had been Paddy would have heard them too. And the words were in English.

‘I think he understands our language,’ she said carefully. They had both accepted, she noticed, that it was Marcus they had seen, not some flesh and blood intruder in the woods. ‘I think if we are communicating with him or with anyone else it is in our heads.’

‘But you could tell him to sod off in Latin?’ He said it so hopefully she heard herself laugh out loud.

‘I did the kind of Latin one learns in the hope that it will facilitate one’s grasp of literature,’ she said apologetically. ‘I don’t think I ever learned to say sod off.’ She paused. ‘I do know the Pater Noster though.’

‘Say it.’

‘Pater Noster, qui es in caelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum. Adveniat regnum tuum. Fiat voluntas tua, sicut in caelo, et in terra. Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie. Et dimitte nobis debita nostra, sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris. Et ne nos inducas in tentationem: sed libera nos a malo…’ She stopped.

There was a moment’s silence. ‘Go on,’ he whispered.

‘That’s it. Or at least, that’s all I can remember. But that’s the important bit. Libera nos a malo. Deliver us from evil.’ It didn’t matter. There was no one out there listening now. She was sure of it. He had gone. ‘Paddy, let’s try and find the gun. It can’t have gone far.’ It was almost dark. The light was failing fast.

‘I think it fell over there. Don’t tell Dad it went off. He’ll never let me use it again.’

‘It probably saved our lives,’ she retorted tersely. ‘I can see it. There. In those nettles.’

The snow was thicker now, drifting down, here a pale drifting cloud, there driven by the wind into a stinging curtain.

Patrick retrieved the gun cautiously, and broke it under his arm. He looked round. ‘There’s no sign of a path. I can’t even see which way we came.’

‘This way.’ Kate didn’t hesitate. She pushed through some brambles and began to climb a small incline, her borrowed boots slipping in the snow.

‘Wait.’ Patrick was staring round. ‘Look. Through the trees.’

‘Where?’

‘There. I can see a light.’

‘Thank God!’ It was a heartfelt prayer. Side by side they scrambled towards it, sliding and slipping downwards now, out of the eye of the wind into the shelter of the woods again.

‘It’s gone. I can’t see it.’

‘There. There it is.’ Patrick stopped. ‘It’s Redall. Oh, Kate, we’ve come round in a circle. We’re back where we started. He’s not going to let us escape.’ The disappointment and fear in his voice were palpable.

She bit her lip, angry with herself as much for the stupidity as for the overwhelming rush of relief which had swept over her. ‘Can’t be helped. We’ll go back in and see if we can find a compass.’

‘Right.’ He nodded firmly.

‘Then we’ll have to try again. And this time we’ll stay on the main track.’

‘Agreed.’ He gave her a broad grin. ‘A hot drink first, though. Yes?’

‘Yes.’ She put her arm around his shoulder.