Danuta Reah - Night Angels

He let Candy explore. There were sheep, and at this time of year they could be in lamb, but Candy knew better than to chase them. He sat down on a rock to tighten the laces on his boots and put on his gaiters. Frost or not, it could be muddy up on the tops. He noticed the car with the half awareness of distraction – he was planning his route – and then with annoyance. Its red intruded on the landscape, and, anyway, it shouldn’t have been there. He thought that people who couldn’t manage to make their way here without a car should walk somewhere else. He knew he was being inconsistent, and that irritated him more.

He thought that the car was parked a bit oddly. He called Candy back, and she came bounding down the path with a piece of heather root in her mouth which she laid at his feet, looking at him expectantly. ‘Leave!’ he said, as he walked towards the car. It was pulled right in, close to the rocks. Getting it in there must have damaged it – Keith couldn’t see any way that careless parking would have brought it so far in. He checked the front and back. The number plates had been removed. Right. It was probably stolen, then. Joyriders? It seemed unlikely they’d go to the trouble of half hiding a car up here. Maybe it had been used in a burglary, a get-away car or something. The idea quite appealed to him.

Candy was exploring, her heather root forgotten. She was round the passenger side, sniffing at the wheel, her tail up and her ears perked with interest. Then she froze, her ears forward, her eyes intent. Her tail was down now, cautious, as she lowered herself in stalking mode and peered under the car. She was making little whining noises in her throat. Keith got hold of her collar and hauled her back. ‘Daft dog. You’ll get covered in oil under there.’ Candy looked up at him, and moved round to the other side of the car, still low to the ground, still cautious. Keith followed her, interested now. She moved slowly up to the driver’s door, her nose testing the air, the whines turning to low growls. She pressed her nose against dark stains that had splashed the sill. She scratched at the door, whimpering.

The driver’s door was hard to reach because the car was parked up against the rock. Keith tried the handle, and the door opened a short way. A smell like – he couldn’t quite find the comparison – like a city alleyway, like a…It was the smell of sweat and the geriatric ward, the ward where his mother had died, the smell of ammonia and decay. The smell made him step back and Candy jumped straight in, and began burrowing in the foot-well. Keith grabbed the thick hair on her hindquarters and hauled her out. She squealed. There were dark stains round her muzzle. It was hard to see the inside of the car, but they looked like the same dark stains that were on the dashboard and on the steering wheel, with smudges on the seat and, now he came to look, on the windows. It reminded him of the thick, black mud from the bogs and stagnant pools of Cold-harbour Moor up on the tops. Had someone fallen in, come back to the car to clean up and change?

He went back round to the passenger side and tried that door. It opened. He snapped a command at Candy who was trying to get past him again into the car, and looked round the interior. The glove compartment was hanging open and empty. There was nothing in the car itself. He touched the driver’s seat. It was damp. He checked the boot. It was locked. He shut the car door and scratched his head. He’d better call in, report this to someone. But the hills on either side were blocking the signal to his phone. He’d need to walk right up the path before he was high enough above the rock faces and the steep sides of the dyke, and the signal came back. He set off, whistling for Candy to follow. She raced past him, leaping over the rocks, stopping to look back at him, her mouth open and her tongue hanging out. It was half an hour before he reached the top, breathing hard after the steep climb, feeling his boots heavy with the dark peaty mud that clung to them. Candy was worrying a stick now, her energy undiminished.

He checked his map and took a compass bearing, more to keep his hand in than because he needed to. A kestrel circled in the sky above him. Then he headed off across the hills with Candy bounding ahead, detouring off the path into the heather, disappearing from view and waiting for him to catch up. It was a beautiful day for a walk.

Anna put her bag down on the floor, keeping it carefully between her feet. She could feel the eyes of the cloakroom attendant on her. Should she say something to the woman to account for her dishevelled appearance, or should she just act as though nothing was wrong? Her heavily accented English tended to produce a hostile response. Get back to where you came from! She ran water over her hands, and squeezed liquid soap on to her handkerchief. She needed to clean herself up. She needed privacy. She needed a cubicle. There was a queue, and she shuffled forward, keeping her head down. No one would be looking for her here. No one would be looking for her at all. It was a coincidence, just an accident, just…

A cistern flushed, and she jumped. She could feel the sick coldness coming over her. If she passed out here, someone would call the police and then…Before anyone could move, she pushed ahead and went into the vacant cubicle, pushing past the woman who was coming out. She could hear a muttering behind her: ‘Excuse me! Who does…?’ ‘There’s a queue…!’ She bolted the door behind her and sank down on to the seat, her bag under her feet, and put her head down until the cold dizziness passed. She was tired. She was so tired. And she was hungry. Get away, get away, get away. But it wasn’t that easy. She didn’t know where to go. She had no money, she had no papers. She had, had to get the stuff from her room. She couldn’t leave it, not now, not after all the work and all the time and all the planning.

She felt as though her head was floating and the things she was hearing came from a distance. She had spent the last three nights walking around the city centre – Keep moving, keep moving – huddling herself up on park benches during the day; dozing off, feeling the treacherous warmth creeping through her, waking with a jerk as she began to slump off the seat. While she still had money in her purse, she had ridden on the buses, on the top deck because she didn’t want to be seen from the street, drifting into a doze as the true warmth began to bring the feeling back to her face and feet and hands, and jerking awake, aware, suddenly, that she was alone, and footsteps were coming up the stairs.

‘…in there? I said, Are you…’ She jolted upright in a wash of cold. The door was rattling. For a moment, she couldn’t understand what the voice was saying. She was shivering and she couldn’t control it. She took a deep breath. Calm, calm. ‘Fine,’ she said, relieved that her voice came out steady. ‘Just, a little sick. In my stomach.’

She could hear voices, footsteps. She couldn’t work out what they were saying. She wiped the damp, soapy rag over her face, rubbed hard until her face felt clean. She untied her scarf and pulled her hair firmly back, then she tied it again, tightly. There was no mirror in here. The action made her feel a little better. She picked up her bag, and opened the cubicle door. She could feel the eyes of the queuing women on her, and could see the cloakroom attendant watching her again. She managed a smile. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Just a little sick…’

The woman ignored her. Anna could hear the voices as the door closed behind her: ‘…back to where they…’ She was walking through the furniture department now, and there were mirrors on the walls, and free-standing mirrors, and mirrors on dressing tables and wardrobe doors. She could see a woman in a crumpled jacket and stained trousers with her hair jumbled up under a scarf, a bag bulging under her arm. She stopped and turned round. The woman was there behind her, and in front of her as she moved faster down the aisles, and the woman twisted and turned and followed her until she came up against some railings and there was nowhere to go.