Midnight is a Lonely Place

LXIV

The footprints were filling up as they watched, disappearing beneath a new layer of snow. Pete was slightly ahead, walking fast, his head down against the wind. Around them the landscape was uniformly white: shore, sea, sky, a formless, cold frame without definition.

‘She went this way,’ Pete had slowed almost to a standstill. He was casting around him, like a dog searching for a new scent. ‘Then the footsteps seem to stop.’ They stared around desperately, both men doubled over, studying the snow. ‘I can’t see…’

‘Here.’ Jon had walked closer to the sea and suddenly he spotted the tracks again. Lighter this time, and scuffed, as though she had been running.

Kate.

He shaded his eyes against the imagined glare and stared past the dunes towards the sea. The beach stretched in both directions, the shape of the dunes flattened by the snow, and in the cold emptiness nothing moved.

‘Kate!’ His shout was swallowed by the wind, muffled by the snow. It had no resonance, as though he had shouted through several layers of cotton wool. The sound would not have carried more than a few yards. ‘Kate!’

Pete made no comment. He had moved on, head down against the wind, his face immobile now with cold, trying to see new footprints through the whirling snow.

‘She was heading towards the sea,’ Jon shouted at him at last. ‘Why?’

‘Lost her sense of direction? Panic?’ Pete had stopped, his hands rammed down inside his pockets. ‘Poor woman must be in terror of her life.’ He shook his head. ‘Shall we go on?’

‘Of course we go on.’ Jon was shaking. ‘We go on until we find her.’

He plunged on, across the snow, sinking now and then through the white blanket into softer sand. ‘Kate!’ His voice rose and dissipated into nothing, whirled to shreds on the wind. ‘Kate!’

The voices were still warring inside her head. Standing staring down into the snow-filled grave, Alison saw nothing of the snow, nor of the two figures floundering against the wind.

‘Kate!’

The word whirled past her and was lost. It meant nothing.

Whore

Murderer

They were inside her head, both of them, sucking her energy. Soon she would be drained and they would go.

‘It’s not Kate!’

She did not hear the words; did not see the two men who stood now, one each side of her.

‘Who then?’

Jon shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’ Tentatively he reached over to touch her arm. ‘Are you all right?’

Alison ignored him. She did not see or hear him. Her gaze never left the drifting snow at her feet.

‘Hey, kid, are you OK?’ Pete’s touch was stronger. He took her by the shoulders and shook her gently.

Alison did not react. Claudia’s face was white against the snow, her gown, still stained with blood, as blue as the sky. She could feel the woman’s need, the longing, the fear and hate: May the gods of all eternity curse you, Marcus Severus Secundus, for what you have done here today.

She was winning now: Claudia.

‘What’s wrong with her?’ Pete glanced at his companion. ‘God knows, but the kid’s freezing.’ Jon wriggled out of his jacket and wrapped it around Alison’s shoulders. ‘Let’s get her back to that cottage.’

‘I don’t know that that’s such a good idea.’

‘Maybe not, but where else can we take her?’

The two men looked at one another for a moment across Alison’s bowed head.

She could not hear them. He was there now, his fury blistering inside her skull. The grave. Destroy the grave!

With a sob she wrenched herself free of Jon’s arm. Staggering a few steps from him, she aimed a kick at the snow-covered sand. ‘Destroy it!’ The voice which came from her lips was guttural; low pitched. A man’s voice, for all the words were clearly English.

Jon stepped back in surprise. Then, regathering his wits, he moved forward again to pick up the jacket which had slipped from her shoulders and wrap it once more around her. ‘Come on. You must keep warm.’ His own voice was shaking with cold.

‘No!’ She shook him off with ease. ‘Keep away from me.’ She threw the jacket down on the snow and leaped down into the shallow hollow below the dune with a sudden, last surge of energy. ‘The sea will take it soon.’ She threw back her head and laughed. ‘The sea will take it at last! Two thousand years it has taken for the tide to come and tonight it will wipe the slate clean!’ She stood staring at the sea, her hair streaming back from her forehead, her eyes fixed on the horizon. Jon and Pete, surprised into silence, stared with her. The wind was strengthening from the east, whipping the snow in across the water, building the waves, pushing the sea higher and higher up the beach.

‘Alison!’

The cry barely reached them. For a moment none of them reacted, then Jon turned. Three figures were hurrying towards them, heads down into the wind, almost lost in the white whirl of snowflakes.

‘Kate?’ As he recognised her Jon felt his heart leap inside his chest. Relief, joy, worry – all three seemed to swirl around his head as he stepped towards her. She was accompanied by a young man – a boy he saw as he looked closer – and Anne.

‘Jon?’ Her astonishment stopped her in her tracks.

‘Hi.’ He found he was smiling. He shrugged. ‘It’s a long story.’

She stared at him for a moment, overwhelmed with relief, wanting to throw herself into his arms, then her glance moved on past him, resting briefly on Pete before she turned to Alison.

‘Allie? Allie, are you all right?’ Her questions to Jon could come later. The fact that he was there, on the beach in the snow, spoke volumes. She slid down the side of the dune after Patrick who had thrown his arms around his sister.

Alison shrugged him off viciously, and he staggered back, bewildered. ‘She’s gone, Kate.’ There were tears running down his face. ‘She’s gone. She’s not here. It’s not her.’

‘Allie!’ Kate took Alison’s hand and chafed it in her own. ‘Allie, come on. Fight it. Please. You have to fight it. Come back to us!’

‘What’s wrong with her?’ Pete slid down beside them.

‘She’s ill. She doesn’t know what she’s doing.’ Pushing her hair out of her eyes, Kate began to button the jacket across Alison’s chest. ‘We have to get her back out of the wind. She’s no strength left.’

‘She seemed to have plenty of strength to me, love.’ Pete grimaced. ‘She nearly pushed me across the beach.’

‘But don’t you see, that’s not her!’ Kate cried. ‘That’s not her strength. He’s possessing her. He’s draining her. We have to get her away from here.’

‘I’ll take her.’ Jon did not waste time asking her what she was talking about. He lifted Alison off her feet and turning, began to tramp inland, with his back to the wind.

He knew the exact moment when the strength went out of her. He could feel it draining away as he walked. Physically, she seemed lighter suddenly – a bag of bones in his arms where moments before he had held a rigid, angry body. He clutched her more closely, glancing down at her face as he cradled her against his chest. Her eyes were closed, her face white, a child’s face, when a moment before it had seemed to belong to someone else entirely. He shuddered and suddenly there was a hand on his arm. He glanced sideways and met Kate’s eyes. She smiled as she stumbled along at his side. ‘Thank God you’re here.’ Did he hear the words against the wind or did he imagine them? He wanted to reach out and touch her, but all he could do was smile and stagger on, feeling the weight of the girl dragging at his arms. Suddenly, her head lolled back and her eyes rolled open. He stopped, horrified, staring down at her face. She was limp now, cold inside the roughly-buttoned jacket.

‘Jon, what is it?’ Kate was beside him, looking down at Alison’s face.

He met her eyes. ‘We’ve got to get her inside quickly, Kate.’

Wordlessly she nodded. Tucking the jacket more closely around Alison’s inert body, she followed as Jon walked on across the snow through the dunes, his shoulders hunched against the wind.

In the cottage he carried her straight upstairs and laid her gently on Kate’s bed, then he stood back as Kate pulled the blankets over the girl and chafed her hands.

Pete appeared in the doorway behind them. He had pulled the front door closed, and then, firmly, shut the door to the living room before climbing the stairs.

‘What happened to Bill?’ Jon asked softly. His eyes were fixed on Alison’s face.

Kate did not look up. ‘He was attacked. In the woods near here.’

‘Attacked?’

She went on rubbing Alison’s hand. ‘He said it was a woman. Two women. We brought him here. But the phones were out. We couldn’t get help.’ Her voice was shaking; he saw a tear fall onto the blanket. Stepping forward he put his hand on her shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. ‘Judging by the bruises on his face no one could have helped, Kate. I should think his skull was fractured in a dozen places.’

‘He said Allie did it.’ The words were out before she could stop them. She heard both men gasp and at last she looked up. ‘She couldn’t have done, could she? She couldn’t… He was a big man. She’s only a child…’

The room was very silent. The girl on the bed, her face white, her hair strewn damply across the pillow, did not move. Her hand in Kate’s was limp and cold. Kate leaned back against Jon, her eyes closed. She was suddenly so weary she couldn’t move. Alison’s hand dropped from her fingers. For a moment it lay on the blanket where it had fallen, then suddenly it convulsed into a fist. The girl’s eyes flew open. Her voice when she spoke was strong and triumphant.

‘Listen,’ she said. ‘Listen. The tide is rising at last.’