as he disappeared into the undergrowth, heading for the woods.
‘Oh for God’s sake.’ Stupid animal.
Nicholas stepped outside, slippers scuffing through the wind-whipped grass. ‘Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin, you get your smelly old rear end back here this instant!’
Which, of course, he didn’t. Because when did a Jack Russell ever do what it’s told?
‘STALIN! COME ON, YOU LITTLE SOD, DADDY’S GOT WORK TO DO!’
Still no sign of him.
‘Should’ve got a cat.’ Nicholas sagged, sighed, then zipped his hoodie up. Reached in through the open kitchen door to grab the torch hanging there and his walking stick.
Dog was a bloody menace.
The torch beam played across the windy grass, across the waving spears of thistle, across the boiling mass of nettles, towards the woods.
Deep breath. ‘STAAAAAAAAAAAA-LIN!’
Wind tugged at his hood, pattering it against his bald spot.
‘Bloody dog.’ He cleared a path into the woods with his walking stick, swinging it like a machete, following the torch beam towards the trees. Their trunks and branches shone like ancient bones in the darkness.
‘STAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-LIN!’ He dropped his voice to a disgruntled mutter. ‘Should’ve buried you when we buried Abigail, you horrible stinky little monster.’
Another breath: ‘STAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-LIN!’
A crack sounded somewhere deeper in the woods and Nicholas froze …
‘If you don’t get your rear over here right now, young man, I’m going inside and you can spend the rest of the night shivering in the dark. Is that what you want? Is it?’
He brought the torch round, sweeping across the skeleton branches and bone trunks.
A pair of eyes glittered back at him – too far away to make out anything but their reflected glow.
He stayed where he was. ‘Stalin? Stalin, that you?’
No answering bark. No response at all. Whatever it was just stayed there, staring at him from the darkness.
‘Hmph.’ Nicholas pulled his chin up. ‘Well, what are you then: a fox or a badger?’
And that’s when he feels it. A … presence. There’s someone behind him!
The smoky tang of whisky catches in his nostrils as they step in close, their breath warm against his cheek.
Oh God …
His mouth dries, pulse stabbing its way through his throat.
There’s a papery rustling sound. Then a cold metallic one as a ghost-white arm appears from behind Nicholas, painfully bright in the torch’s glow. The arm holds an axe, the blade chipped and brown with rust.
‘A fox or a badger?’ A small laugh. ‘Oh, I’m something much, much worse …’
‘Urgh … Look at this place: so bucolic it’s sickening.’
Una pulled her Fiat onto the gravel driveway and grimaced out through the windscreen.
A crumbling farmhouse with a small wood behind it, a bunch of hedges and bushes and flowers and trees and things. Nothing for miles and miles but hills and fields and sheep and trees and whatever the hell that was swooping about through the blue sky. Like bats, only in the daytime. Daybats.
Off to the side, a bunch of outbuildings and barns and the like were in various stages of being done up – one of them caught in a web of scaffolding, the slates stripped off the roof and replaced by blue papery stuff.
Urgh.
Joe’s voice boomed out of her car’s speakers, ‘So is he there?’
She killed the engine, grabbed her phone from its cradle, and climbed out into the … Oh dear Lord, it was like climbing into an oven. One filled with the contented sound of stupid bumblebees staggering their way through the baking air en route to extinction. Barely out of the car thirty seconds and already her nice floaty paisley shirt was clinging to her back.
‘Hello, Una? Helllllo?’
‘Hold on.’ She dipped back into the car for her Frappuccino and sunglasses, pinning the phone between her ear and shoulder so she could plip the locks. Stuck her shades on.
‘So, is the old bugger there or not?’
‘Well I don’t know, do I?’ The gravel scrunched beneath her feet as she marched for the front door. ‘With any luck he’ll be dead in a cupboard with a scarf around his neck, an orange in his mouth, and his cock in his hand.’
‘Oh thank you very much for that image. I’m eating a banana!’
Una mashed her thumb against the bell and deep inside the house something went off like a distant Big Ben. ‘Oh come on, he’s a stranglewank waiting to happen.’
No answer.
‘Going to have nightmares, now.’
Another go.
Una checked her watch. Nearly ten already. ‘For goodness’ sake.’ Because it wasn’t like she had a dozen faculty meetings to get through today, was it?
She tried the handle: locked.
Then Una turned and looked across the drive to a manky old Volvo estate painted a shade of used-nappy brown. ‘Professor Stranglewank’s car’s still here.’
So he couldn’t have gone far.
She thumped the palm of her hand against the front door, making it rattle. ‘NICHOLAS, ARE YOU IN THERE?’ Pause. ‘COME ON: IT’S TOO HOT OUT HERE FOR DICKING ABOUT!’ A bead of sweat tickled its way down her ribs.
‘If it is a stranglewank, fiver says he’s wearing women’s underwear.’
‘Hold on I’ll try round the back.’
She picked her way past the bins and through a patch of grass landmined with small grey jobbies. Around the corner the garden opened up. Well, if you could call it that. The whole thing was a sea of weeds. Oceans of them. Some high as your hip. A strange tiny shed looking about ready to collapse inside a chicken-wire prison. Place was a disgrace.
She took a sip of creamy cold coffee, then pinned the phone with her shoulder again and hammered her fist against the back door.
