around behind the chair, he paused to watch. Perhaps it could smell him. It could certainly hear him, because his breathing was deep and heavy, calm. But now that it could no longer see him, the panic was deeper, the desperation more divine.
He watched for a while, coughing once, uttering a long, low whistle, excited at how these sounds affected its behaviour – a pause, and then more frantic efforts to break free.
He glanced around the room. The house was old and abandoned, everything neat and ordered but layered with years of dust, perhaps the home of a dead person with no relatives. It was out of time, and he was confident that he would not be interrupted. The traditional life represented here by a bulky TV, a table for dinner, and family photographs, was not his life.
Far from it.
A loud snort drew his attention back to his victim. Blood and mucus shot from its broken nose, and then it breathed more easily.
He closed slowly from behind, and then pounced.
Moving with confidence, he pulled its head back against the high-backed chair, pressed the tube’s nozzle into one nostril, and squirted the superglue inside.
Then he dropped the tube and squeezed its nose shut.
As it squirmed and tensed, attempting to writhe from side to side against the ropes, its strength surprised him. He had to pull back hard, tipping the chair onto its two rear legs. But it didn’t take long.
After a minute he let the chair drop back onto all fours. The impact on the hardwood floor had the sound of finality. Retrieving the tube of glue, he moved around to face it for the last time.
Its right nostril was closed, deformed. Its eyes were wide and desperate, issuing pleas that it knew would not be answered.
He could see that realisation in its eyes – there was no hope, and the only future remaining was the space between this breath and its last. That pleased him. Its panic was his fuel.
Pressing its head back against the chair, he heard the sudden inhalation that would feed those final few seconds. He squirted glue into its open nostril. Squeezed the nose shut. Looked into its eyes.
‘Shhh,’ he said.
But even then, he did not smile.
It was the downhills that scared Dom the most.
He’d once read that cycling defines the man, and as he mounted the brow of the hill and followed Andy down into the first curve of the big descent, he couldn’t help but agree.
Andy was hunched low, hands on drop bars, head down, arse up, and he was already moving noticeably ahead.
Dom’s hands were feathering the brakes. They’d ridden this descent together several times before, and it was always at this point that the fear bit in.
The garish pink house flitted by on the left, big dog barking from the raised deck and old man sitting in his garden rocker as usual, a bemused expression on his face.
On the right was a low hedge guarding an incredible view across the Monmouthshire countryside, shimmering and hazed in the growing heat of yet another scorching day. And then the road curved around to the left and grew steeper, and there was no going back.
The breeze blasting past his ears carried a distorted ‘Yeaaahaaaa!’ from Andy, and Dom grinned and hunkered down over his handlebars. As the road straightened into the long, steep descent, Andy was speeding away from him.
Dom always thought about what could go wrong. He knew the route pretty well, and so could swerve around the two portions that were rough and holed. But he’d once seen a squirrel dart across the road just feet from Andy’s spinning wheels. If that happened to him, he’d either strike it and spill, or panic and grasp the brakes, which would probably result in a skid and crash.
There was one area of road halfway down that had slumped, kerb bowing down the hillside and road surface cracked and dipped where it was starting to collapse. Trees shaded the road for the last mile of descent, and in those shadows it was harder to see the surface. He might get a bee trapped in his helmet or, worse, behind one lens of his glasses. A puncture at over forty miles per hour could be catastrophic.
At the bottom of the descent was another bend, not too severe, but at those speeds he’d have to steer on trust: trust that there was no car coming the other way in the middle of the road; no cows crossing; no crows feeding on the slick remains of a crushed badger, or—
But as he switched his hands to the drop bars and the wind rushed past his ears, Dom realised that today felt different. Maybe it was the three straight weeks of record-breaking heat and cloudless skies. It could have been the thrill of being out so early, enjoying almost traffic-free roads for the first hour of their ride.
Or perhaps it was because he and his wife, Emma, had made love on their patio the night before. He’d been worried about being seen, even though the garden of their modest detached home was hardly overlooked. She’d soon seen away his fears.
As his speed increased and he reminded himself to be loose and relaxed, he yelled in delight.
Andy still beat him to the bottom, disappearing around the bend twenty seconds before Dom.
Dom moved into the centre of the road and raised himself slightly, trying to see through the trees and shadows and make out whether anything was coming in the opposite direction. He swept around the corner and drifted back towards the left, and as his momentum decreased he switched down a few awkward gears and started pedalling. He’d have to get his gearing sorted before the descents. One more thing he should work on.
Andy was waiting for him half a mile further on. He straddled his bike in the village hall car park, gulping down a drink and looking cool in his expensive shades. Dom came to a stop beside his friend, breathing hard, not from exertion but from the thrill of the descent.
‘Fifty-one!’ Andy said.
Dom checked his bike computer. ‘Forty-eight. Fastest I’ve done down there. Felt good today.’
‘Do one thing every day that scares you.’ Andy was fond of the Eleanor Roosevelt quotation, and it always made Dom smile. On these long rides with Andy, he’d usually manage two or three things, at least.
‘Christ, it’s scorching already,’ Dom said. Now that he’d stopped the sweat ran down his face and soaked his jersey, even speckling the hairs on his legs. Andy looked sweaty too, but it seemed to suit him more. His T-shirt was tight and clingy, but whereas Dom’s jersey showed his pudgy waistline and lanky arms, Andy’s clung to his flat stomach and broad shoulders.
‘You’ll beat me down one day,’ Andy said.
‘Doubt that.’
‘Should do. You have a distinct weight advantage.’
‘Yeah,
