Mark Chadbourn - Darkest hour

"Losers," Veitch said with obvious irritation. "At least if they're not watching us we can come up on their blind side."

Church was heartened to see the fatalism which had infected them ever since they came together was slowly dissipating; now there seemed no doubt that they could do something, however little that might be. Against the allpowerful forces lined against them, that was a great victory in itself.

"It has the hallmark of someone working alone," Shavi noted. "In this new world, perhaps we inadvertently antagonised something. Trespassed on land it presumed was its own."

"But who did the finger belong to?" Ruth asked.

"Some poor bastard," Church muttered.

"Let us hope it was a warning not to go back there," Shavi said, "and that it has not decided to pursue us for recompense."

The hotel was holding its weekly ceilidh that night and by 7:30 p.m. the regulars began to drift in to the large lounge next to the bar. The band had already started to set up; it was the fiddle player's intense warm-up which had attracted Church and the others. They wandered in with their drinks and were welcomed with surprising warmth. The old man Church and Veitch had met in the bar earlier was there and gave them a wink as they took a beer from the barrels lined up on a table at one end of the room.

At 8 p.m. the dancing began. The moment the fiddle player launched into his reel the lounge turned into a maelstrom of whirling men and women of all ages, skirts flying, heels flicking, grins firmly set on faces. A girl of around seventeen grabbed Shavi's arm and dragged him into the throng. He took to the dance with gusto.

Veitch backed off in case anyone pulled him in. "Bleedin' Scottish dancing. Not my scene, mate," he muttered.

The drink was flowing as fast as the music, with every glass of beer followed by a chaser of malt. In that atmosphere of wild abandon and life celebration it was impossible not to become involved, and soon Church and the others had lost all thought of the stresses and tensions that assailed them.

As the night drew on, they made new friends and drifted from conversation to conversation. Shavi seemed particularly popular with the young women and Ruth with the men; she surprised herself by revelling in the attention she was getting, a liberating experience after the oppression of the previous few weeks.

Sweating after a vigorous dance, she adjourned to the bar area where she found Laura lounging against the wall, sipping on a glass of neat vodka.

"Keeping all the boys happy," Laura said coolly.

Over the weeks, Ruth had learned to ignore Laura's baiting, but with the drink rushing round her system, she found herself bristling. "I can understand how you'd be jealous of someone who's popular."

"Jealous? Look in the mirror, Frosty."

"What do you mean?"

"You know what I mean."

Ruth did, and that irritated her even more. "If you think I'm bothered about you and Church-"

"It's pretty obvious you've been trying to wrestle him to the ground since you met him. But he's got about as much in common with you as he has with Shavi. Face it, the best woman won." Laura smiled tightly, but her eyes were cold and hard.

Ruth could feel her anger growing, which made her even more angry. She hated to lose control, but somehow Laura knew how to punch all the right buttons. "Do I hear desperation in your voice? Now you've got him, you're afraid of losing him, aren't you?"

Laura thought about this for a moment. "We're right for each other."

"What you mean is, he's right for you. You've finally found someone strong enough to carry the weight of all your emotional baggage." Ruth caught herself before she said anything more hurtful.

"What do you know about emotions? You're an ice queen." Laura tried to maintain her cool, but she knocked back her vodka in one go.

"That shows how much you know."

"All I'm saying is, stay away from him. I saw you talking to him the other night, trying to wheedle your way into his affections-"

"I wouldn't dream-" Ruth caught herself as her defiance suddenly surfaced. In the background the music was raging and she had to raise her voice. "And what would you do if I did?"

Laura turned and stared at her for a long moment with eyes impossible to read and then walked away through the crowd.

Veitch and Shavi had got into a drinking competition, knocking down shots while they were egged on by a cheering crowd. But all paused as Tom stepped onto the small, makeshift stage and whispered something to the fiddle player. A second later the musician handed over his instrument which Tom shouldered before beginning to tap out a rhythm with his right foot. And then he started to play, a low, mournful sound that made everyone in the room stop what they were doing and stare. The tune was mediaeval in construction, the melody filled with the ache of loneliness, of love never-to-be-found, of yearning and failed desire; Church felt a cold knot develop in his chest, but Tom's face was impassive, his eyes icy. And then, as if he had suddenly awoken to the fact that he had dampened the mood, Tom began to pick up the beat, slowly at first, but then quicker and quicker, until he had developed the melody into a rampant jig. A couple down the front began to clap, and the sound ripped back through the crowd until everyone was joining in, physically driving the mood back up. Within a couple of minutes, everyone was dancing again and Tom seemed to be having the time of his life.

As Church sipped on his glass of malt, his head woozy from drink, feeling uncommonly happy for the first time in days, he felt a strange sensation prickling along his spine, as if someone was watching him. In the days since he had first encountered the unknown under Albert Bridge he had learned to be attentive to his instincts. He turned quickly. There was no one behind him, but the door to the corridor which ran down to the hotel entrance was open. For a second or two, he weighed his options, then crept over to the doorway and peered out. The corridor was empty.

He had just about convinced himself it was nothing but his imagination at work when the door out on to the street swung open slightly, as if it had been buffeted by a breeze; as it did, he thought he heard a faint, melodic voice calling his name.

His heart picked up a beat, but after all he had been through, he still didn't feel wary. There was something… a feeling, perhaps… which seemed to be floating in the air from the direction of the door and it was overwhelmingly comforting. His first reaction was that he was being summoned by the spirit of Marianne, as he had been twice before, but it felt different this time. He finished his whisky, left his glass on an ornamental table in the corridor and walked towards the door.

The main street was completely still, although it wasn't late in the evening. The streetlights were bright, but not so much that they obscured the glittering array of stars in the clear sky. The night itself was balmy with the promise of summer just around the corner. He looked up and down the deserted street until he saw something which caught his eye.

Across the road was the park that rolled down to the river. During the day it had been filled with the whoops of children racing around the adventure playground and the jeers of teenagers hanging out next to the log cabin where the refreshments were served, but at that time it was deserted and unnervingly quiet. He crossed the road and leant on the wall, searching the paths that wound among the waving, fluffy-tipped pampas grass. Something moved. His rational mind told him it would be ridiculous to venture down into those wide open spaces, but his instincts didn't register anything that worried him. He steeled himself, then opened the gate.

Away from the streetlights, he was uncomfortably aware of the wild presence of nature looming away in the dark, but the splashing of the river prevented the silence becoming too oppressive. Whatever had brought him down there seemed to be leading him. Every now and then he would catch sight of a movement ahead, steering him down the paths until he was following the course of the river back towards the heart of the town. Eventually he came up to a brick bridge with an old churchyard next to it. It was an odd, triangular shape, the jumbled mass of markers mildewed, with some so timeworn they resembled the ancient standing stones of Gairloch. The grass among them was thick and along the walls age-old trees were so gnarled and wind-blasted they looked like menacing figures daring him to enter. It was so eerily atmospheric in the quiet that he almost did turn back, but after another movement on the far side, he took a deep breath and swung open the green, iron gate that hung ajar.