Midnight is a Lonely Place

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.

The snow in front of the front door was smooth and clean. No sign of footprints. Raising his hand to the knocker, Jon surreptitiously crossed his frozen fingers.

The door swung open. His heart sank. ‘I suppose this is the right place?’ There should have been locks and bolts. There were locks and bolts. His hand located them on the inside of the door as cautiously, he pushed it open. ‘Hello!’ He called. ‘Kate?’

Silence.

He took a step in. ‘Kate, are you there?’ His searching fingers found a light switch and he clicked it up and down several times. ‘No light.’

Pete had followed him into the hall out of the wind. ‘Bit ripe in here, mate.’ Pete sniffed hard. ‘Somebody’s puked.’ He reached into his pocket for the torch and shone it around the hall. ‘There’s obviously no one here. I reckon your girlfriend moved out – for the night at least.’ Stepping forward, he pushed open a door and shone the light inside. ‘Kitchen. Bloody electric cooker. No electrics.’ He was trying that light switch as well. He turned and made for the door on the opposite side of the hall. ‘Living room. With a wood stove. We could light that at least. Oh my God!’ The roving beam of light was directed at the sofa.

‘What is it?’ Jon pushed through the door behind him and peered over his shoulder. ‘Oh Christ!’ Both men stood where they were for a moment, their eyes fixed on the shape beneath the blanket on the sofa. It was Jon who stepped reluctantly forward. Behind him Pete shone the torch onto the battered face.

Jon closed his eyes. For a moment he thought he was going to throw up, but somehow he controlled himself as he turned and staggered out of the room. There was no need to check if the man was dead.

Pete followed him. ‘Know who he is?’

Jon nodded. ‘Bill Norcross. The friend I was telling you about.’

‘Shit.’

‘As you say.’ They moved back into the kitchen and Jon sat down at the counter, his gloved hands to his face. ‘What the hell happened in there?’

‘I’d say he’d been beaten. Bloody hell, Jon, mate. Where’s your girl? Where’s her sister?’

Jon shook his head. Suddenly he was shaking like a leaf.

Pete reached onto the dresser. The fading torch beam had revealed a whisky bottle lying in a mess of earth. It turned out to be empty. ‘You sit here, mate. I’ll take a look round the rest of the place.’

Jon shook his head. ‘I’ll come with you.’

‘There’s no need.’ Both men were thinking the same thing. Were Kate and Anne up there somewhere?

‘No. But I’ll come all the same.’

They took the stairs two at a time. It was Pete who pushed open first one door then the other. Both rooms were empty. They stood in Kate’s bedroom and stared round. Sand and earth had drifted across the floor. The bed was unmade – blankets piled in a heap in the middle of it, and there was earth there as well. The room was full of the sweet, damp smell of it. And something else. Scent. The overpowering stench of it had completely blocked out the unpleasant smell that was seeping up the stairs from below.

‘No one here.’ Pete stated the obvious. ‘I reckon they got out all right.’

Jon sat down on the bed. His fingers trailed across the disarrayed sheets and he found Kate’s nightshirt, tangled amongst the pillows, beneath which presumably she had folded it at some point. He recognised it. It was blue with cheerful scarlet stripes. Smart. Almost masculine. He remembered the way her long, slim legs emerged from the indecently high hemline. Oh, God, Kate. Where was she? ‘What do we do?’ Holding the nightshirt against his chest, he found he was suddenly feeling very weak.

‘Go and look for this farmhouse. It shouldn’t be too far away. That’s where they’ll be.’ Pete’s voice was strong. Confident. Not for the first time, Jon thanked whichever fate had dictated that this particular Colchester taxi driver should be with him tonight.

Closing the front door behind them again, they stood outside the cottage and stared round. There was no clue to which direction to go. Any path there might have been had long since been covered by the snow. Pete shone the torch around once and was about to switch it off when he saw the tracks. A set of footprints. Recent footprints which had passed close to the door and went on across the snow back towards the sea.

‘Someone’s been past here within the last ten minutes or so, while we were inside,’ he commented.

Kate? Anne?

The two men bent their heads towards the wind and set off the way they had come, heading back towards the snow covered dunes.