Midnight Is a Lonely Place

by Barbara Erskine

  ANGER

  HATE

  Probing, thrusting, expanding, rage whirled within the confines of Greg’s brain. The torch fell from his fingers as he raised his hands to his head and tore at his flesh, trying to free himself from the pain. He stepped backwards. His foot, tangled in a lump of gelatinous weed, slid and turned over. The sudden shaft of agony in his ankle forced him down abruptly onto one knee and he felt his arms flail sideways.

  The figure was suddenly closer. It was smiling and the deep-set cavernous eye sockets, which for a fraction of a second had seemed empty, blazed with light.

  Greg felt all the air wrenched out of him. He could feel the suspension of his lungs – rigid, straining to take in another breath which would not come. His head was whirling. His eyes were growing dim. The white had gone from the sea. All he could feel was the cold. A strange, all-encompassing cold which came from deep inside him and was working its way, layer by layer through his body towards the surface. When it reached his brain he would die. He knew it clearly. And, just as clearly, he knew that this was what had happened to Alison and to Bill. He would die here on the beach of hypothermia and no one would ever find him because the tide was coming in. He raised his eyes to the face of the man who stood over him but the figure had gone. The night was empty. High above the bulbous obscenity of cloud a waxing moon sucked at the sea and spewed the tide ever higher across the land.

  XL

  With shaky determination Kate reached for her scarf and wound it around her head. She grabbed her thick jacket and her gloves, and with a last desolate look at Bill, she picked up her torch and opened the front door. She had to find Greg.

  She stopped for a moment at the corner of the cottage, gathering her strength, then, not giving herself any more time to think, she launched herself down the track towards the dunes into the teeth of the gale.

  The excavation was deserted. She stood at the edge of it staring down, her eyes narrowed against the cold, her back to the wind, feeling the damp seeping through the shoulders of her jacket. The wall of sand opposite her had fallen away at one point, and in the torchlight she could see huge patches of discolouration in the exposed strata. She stared at it blankly. The outline of the body was quite clear in the torchlight. It was crouching in the foetal position, exposed in the sand and peat where the wall of the excavation had fallen. She stared at it. For a moment she was too shocked to react. The torch in her hand was wet between her gloved fingers. She steadied it desperately. Had Alison seen this? Was this what had tipped her over the edge into a madness that had driven her to attack and kill a man? She swung the beam round frantically, turning into the wind again, searching for Greg, but she could see nothing in the streaming darkness. Beneath her feet the ground shuddered as the waves crashed onto the beach. The tide was high, within yards of where she stood. She could feel the spray soaking her back as each new wave thundered up the sand and shingle. She had never felt so alone.

  ‘Greg!’

  Her tears were scalding her icy cheeks; she dashed them out of her eyes with the back of her arm. Where was he? She didn’t have the first idea where to look. The dunes and beach and marshes stretched for miles in both directions. Had he walked along the sea’s edge looking for Allie, or had he turned back inland towards the cottage, or even back into the woods?

  She swung the beam back towards the dune face. It was still there, the body, crouched in silhouette in the wet peat. Beneath it the first trickles of frothy water, thick with weed were seeping into the hollow. Unless the tide turned now the dune would be lost. She turned away. She didn’t care. It would be a good thing if it were never seen again as far as she was concerned. Defiantly she began to walk along the edge of the tide, turning northwards, keeping an unsteady parallel course to the sea. If she walked north for fifteen minutes, then inland a hundred yards or so and back, still parallel to the sea, she wouldn’t get lost. That would be better than wandering aimlessly amongst the dunes. Shutting off her torch, she rammed it into her pocket. The sea had a strangely luminous quality about it and she found she could see quite easily as she walked. Better to save the torch until she needed it. She did not specify to herself what such a need might be.

  There was a movement in the darkness ahead of her. She stopped, squinting into the wind. Alison? It wasn’t Greg, of that she was sure. She could feel her breath quickening in her throat. Alison was still out here in the dark. Alison, who had killed a man. Her hand closed over the body of the torch, but she didn’t switch it on. Slowly she moved closer to the spot where she had caught a glimpse of movement.

  The figure had moved. She was slightly to Kate’s left now, almost behind her. And she was beckoning. Beckoning back towards the grave. It wasn’t Allie. This woman was taller, slimmer and she was wearing some sort of blowing, willowy garment – a skirt in spite of the weather, and it looked like a long skirt. Kate’s mouth had gone dry. She found her breath was coming in small, tight gasps. Was this the woman Bill had seen with Allie – the woman who had watched the girl attack him and not lifted a finger to help?

  ‘Claudia?’

  It was a whisper. Please God, don’t let this be happening. Don’t let her be real. Kate took a few steps backwards. The woman seemed to follow her. Adjusting her fingers carefully along the body of the torch until her thumb found the switch, Kate drew it out of her pocket. Sliding the switch across she lifted the torch in one quick movement and shone it straight into the woman’s face. She did not react. The beam went straight through her. Kate could see the streaming grasses and the blowing sand behind her as if her figure was made of glass.

  ‘Help!’ The voice was distant, almost obliterated by the wind. ‘Help me, someone! Kate!’

  Keeping her eye on the woman, Kate backed away. The woman seemed to follow her. Her face was clearly visible. It was a youngish face, pale in the torchlight, the cheekbones high, the hair unravelled, whipping around it. She could see the colours clearly for all their transparency. The bright blue of the gown with the stains upon the front, the redness of her hair, the strange golden eyeshadow on the deepset eyes.

  ‘What is it? What do you want?’ Kate’s voice was shaking. She was vividly conscious of the cry from behind her but she did not dare to turn her back on the figure. It didn’t seem to threaten her in any way but her own terror was so great she was incapable of doing anything other than backing slowly away from it. Slowly, the figure was holding out its hands, but at the same time it was fading. The background behind it was growing stronger. It was her torchbeam, she realised suddenly. It was weakening. ‘Oh no. Please don’t run out.’ She switched off the beam and switched it on again, keeping it directed desperately at the figure. But the woman had gone. She directed the beam up and down, seeing it waver as her hands shook. There was nothing there. Nothing but the violence of the night. She swung round and began to run towards the place from where the voice had seemed to come, the torchbeam swinging violently up and down as she moved and then she saw him. Greg. He was sitting on the edge of the sand, almost in the water.

  ‘Greg. Oh Greg, thank God!’ She flung herself down beside him, almost knocking him backwards on the sand, tears streaming down her face. ‘Greg. Greg.’ She couldn’t do anything but repeat his name over and over again as she clutched at his jacket.

  His arm went round her and he pulled her against him. ‘It’s OK, Kate. It’s OK. Calm down.’

  ‘I saw her. I saw the ghost. Claudia. She was standing by the grave. And there’s a body there, Greg. A body.’ Sobbing, she pushed her face against his sleeve. His jacket was wet and cold, and she could feel him shivering through it. ‘Greg. Bill’s dead.’ The words were muffled through the green waxed material, but he heard them clearly enough.

  ‘Oh sweet Christ.’ He hugged her closer against him. ‘Listen, Kate. You have to help me. Strange though it may seem I’m not sitting here with my feet in the sea for fun. Something has happened to my ankle. I’ve got it caught in something. Have a look, there’s a love. Each time I
try and lean forward to free myself I go all peculiar.’

  He had lain there watching the tide rising higher and higher, swimming in and out of consciousness. He was not catatonic like Alison, nor dazed like Bill, but he knew, as he lay back, resigned to the cold that was creeping through him, that he was well on his way to unconsciousness. Then he had seen the crazily flashing light of Kate’s torch for a second in the dunes behind him. The sight had given him the shot of hope which had sent the adrenalin coursing through his veins again.

  Kate crouched forward. She held the torch close to his ankle. ‘It’s fishing line. All wound round your foot. The hook has gone through your shoe.’

  She felt her stomach clench at the sight of the blood soaking into the sand around his foot. The line had tangled around a whole pile of jetsam weed which had snagged against something which stuck out of the sand. She tugged at it, careful not to touch his foot, but it was immovable, tethering him there in the path of the tide.

  Greg eased himself forward on his elbow. ‘Can you free it? I’ve got a knife somewhere in one of my pockets. Inside, here.’ He tried to drag the zip down from his chin but his hands were cold and slippery and he could feel another wave of nausea and dizziness building.

  ‘I’ll look for it.’ She left his foot and came close to him again. The knotted ends of her scarf were fluttering wildly in the wind. He could feel them drumming against his cheek as she knelt beside him, her eyes narrowed. ‘Wait, I’ll have to get my gloves off.’ She gave him the torch and he saw her pulling at the fingers of her glove with her teeth. He switched off the torch. He could see how weak the battery was, and he ducked suddenly as a stronger than usual wave hurtled up the beach and crashed almost over them, covering them both in icy spray. The glove was off and she had the heavy zip in her hand now, coaxing it down. He could feel the cut of the wind as it slid inside and froze his skin. Her hand followed and he felt her fingers rummaging against the jacket lining. Easing his position slightly, he lifted himself onto his other elbow and put his free arm around her shoulders, trying to borrow some of her warmth. But her jacket was slick and cold with rain. She glanced up at him, her face only inches from his and he saw her smile grimly in the darkness. ‘Hang on in there. I’ll find it. You’ve got more pockets than the Artful Dodger.’

  ‘Keep searching. I wish I were feeling better. I’d take the chance to make a massive pass at you!’ He gave a wan grin.

  ‘In this cold I might just reciprocate.’ Her hands were methodically searching each of the deep pockets on the inside of his jacket. Another wave broke across them and she heard herself gasp at the cold.

  His arm tightened around her. ‘It’s getting closer.’

  ‘It must be nearly high tide. It was in over the edge of the grave.’

  ‘There’s an easterly wind. It’s pushing it higher than usual.’ He glanced up at the sky over her head. ‘Thank God the moon, wherever it is, isn’t quite full. We’re not into springs or I would have been a goner by now.’

  The pain from his foot was hitting him in pulses, travelling up his leg and receding but always constant from his ankle down. He did not dare to try and waggle his foot. The pain when he had done that had caused him to faint. When he had woken up it was because a wave had broken across his face; he had come to, choking. He did not dare to contemplate what the pain would be like when Kate freed him. If she could free him. Perhaps he would pass out again – God’s own anaesthetic. He tried to concentrate on her hand roaming the pockets of his jacket. He was not so far gone that the old system had not reacted a little to the questing hands of a beautiful woman. Her hair smelt of woodsmoke and ash from the woodburner, and her body, pressed close to his, had the slightly musty smell of wet wool, but under it all he could smell the faintest traces of whatever scent she had put on that morning – whenever that was, and her own indefinable smell, the smell that registered subconsciously and made you like or hate, love or loathe, or remain purely indifferent to every human being you met. In her case, in spite of the aggravation she had caused him, he found it extremely attractive. He lay back a little, trying to ease the weight on his elbows, jumping as the movement jarred his leg.

  ‘Sorry. Did I hurt you?’ She had noticed.

  ‘Not you. The hook.’

  ‘Found it.’ At last her fingers had closed over the knife. She pulled it out of his pocket and sat back. Catching hold of his zip she dragged it up. ‘Can’t let you freeze to death.’ She shook her head as another deluge of cold spray poured over them. Officially, the tide had turned half an hour before, but nobody seemed to have told the sea. She glanced at his face. ‘I’ll try not to hurt you.’

  He forced a grin. ‘Listen, if I keel over, just go on and do it. Cut the line, and get the hook out while you can and stop the bleeding.’ He paused to catch his breath as another spasm of pain took him. ‘Don’t try and move me though. I’m heavy.’ Another wan grin. ‘When I come to, I’ll be able to wriggle away from the sea. Then you can go and get help.’

  ‘OK boss.’ She put her hand on his for a second and squeezed it. Then she picked up the torch.

  Whatever happened she mustn’t drop the knife. She tried to pull open the blade with cold, wet fingers but they slipped off uselessly. Swearing, she tried again, hands shaking. Behind her Greg had lain back on the sand. His eyes were closed. His face in the torchlight was almost transparent. She breathed on her fingers for a moment to warm them and then, half unzipping her jacket, pushed her hand under the opposite arm to dry her fingers on the wool of her sweater and bring some feeling back. The next time she tried to prise open the blade the knife opened easily. With a sigh of relief she edged down his body until she was opposite his feet. His free leg was hunched up beneath him where he had tried to drag himself away from the approaching water, his other leg stretched out, the foot twisted, the patch of blood beneath it washed away now by the tide. Holding the torch close to the foot, Kate studied it. Her hands were shaking and she felt suddenly very sick. The first job clearly was to cut away the tangled fishing line where it was wrapped around the ankle. She inserted the knife blade flat against his sock and pulled tentatively against the nylon line. Nothing happened. She pulled harder. Greg groaned. Kate bit her lip. ‘I’ll cut away this bit from the rest. That way I won’t hurt you so much.’ She felt around beneath his foot amongst the weed. Another wave swamped her hands and she clutched desperately at the knife, waiting for the water to draw back again. How had he got it tangled so tightly? It was as if someone had tied the line around and around the foot, tethering him to something buried in the beach. She scrabbled with her hands in the sand. There were shells and an old dead crab tangled amongst the weeds, then the ice-cold, wet sand, then her fingers encountered something hard. A balk of timber completely buried. The line seemed to come from under it. She pushed the knife blade against the timber and gave a ferocious jerk. The line parted. Cautiously, she felt for the next bit. That was easier. It came away at once as did the next. But the final strands, wound round his foot seemed to be pulled tight. Of course, he had done that himself, struggling to free his foot. Shaking the water out of her eyes she worked steadily, strand by strand until at last the final piece fell away. He groaned again. She ignored it. Gently she felt around his shoe. The fish hook in his foot was the largest of several that had been knotted into the line. Curved and barbed they lay glittering in the torchlight, all except the one which disappeared into the side of his trainer. She studied it for a moment, biting her lip. Then she turned, shining the torch for a moment onto Greg’s face. ‘Shall we try and drag you back away from the sea before I do anything else? I’ve cut the line that’s holding you.’

  Lifting himself on his elbows he nodded. ‘I’ll be too heavy for you, Kate. Just help me while I edge back.’ He crooked his good leg up, wedging his heel into the wet shingle and sand and pushed. Sweat broke out on his forehead. Grimly clenching his teeth he did it again, painfully inching his body back away from the sea’s edge. The drag on his bad foot was
agony. He could see Kate bend over him. He knew she had gone behind him and he felt her hands under his shoulders. One more good pull and he would be out of reach of the waves, where the line of wet debris showed the tide had at last begun to pull back. The pull was agonising. He bit back a cry, then everything went black.

  ‘Greg! Greg? are you all right?’ Kate laid him gently down. ‘Greg?’

  His eyes were closed. She stared round in the darkness, feeling suddenly terribly alone. But she knew what she must do: get the hook out, now, while he was unconscious. Biting her lip in concentration, she wedged the torch so the beam shone on his foot and groped in her pocket for the knife. The trainer laces were easy after the fishing line; and the fabric of the shoe itself was not much tougher. Cutting carefully round the hook she managed to remove the shoe and straighten the twisted foot which was blackening and swollen. She wondered if it was broken. Swallowing the wave of nausea which threatened to overwhelm her, she gently lifted the remaining flap of the shoe and stared down at the hook. It had gone completely through his foot. There was no question of trying to pull it out the way it had gone in. The cruel barb on the end of the hook was half out of the top of his foot, wedged between two tendons. ‘Dear God.’ For a moment she wondered what to do. There was no choice. Taking as much care as she could not to jolt his foot further, she sliced the remaining length of line where it was knotted around the hook and began to ease the hook into the cold white flesh, pushing it right through his foot.