He hadn’t given much thought to his own death over the past few weeks. He understood that if the same person had been responsible for the deaths of both Will and Rob then his life was also in danger. He’d been fearful a couple of times too, that day on the tube in particular.
Even so, his own death hadn’t much concerned him. If anything, he’d thought less about it than he had beforehand, his self-pitying suicide fantasies no longer justifiable or even decent.
Perhaps he hadn’t thought about it because he hadn’t imagined himself among the living in the first place. He was under threat of death, and somehow that just hadn’t felt like much of a threat. He’d become detached from life, from the people who could have meant something to him, like a holy man in old age, severing his connections with the world.
Now though, on this train heading north under a darkly leaden sky, he was thinking about death, not as some intangible world that he entered through his sleep but as something violent and final and alien. He didn’t want to die, the most basic desire imaginable and yet it had taken seeing Kate again to restore it.
Possibly it had taken a lot of things - the deaths of friends, the brief echo of what he’d shared with them, the gradual realization of what he’d lost. Seeing Kate though, being with her, that had made him see the possibilities of what still lay ahead. He’d lost sight of it over the years, but there were reasons still to live.
It wasn’t burning through him, no blinding reaffirmation. The only indication of a change was the steady caution developing between his layers of thought. He needed to be vigilant, to make sure people knew that he was going up to Matt’s house, to cover all the angles where some accident might be engineered.
Part of it was staying awake. He’d only been on the train a few minutes when he began to feel his body sliding towards sleep. He needed to stay awake though, and not because of the embarrassment of having an attack in public this time, but for his own safety.
He chatted to a woman across the aisle from him; she was wary at first but took quickly to his accent and his tourist’s enthusiasm, recommending places for him to visit and things to do. She left the train at one of the early stops though, giving him a modest wave from the platform.
There were no other people nearby so he read the paper intently, then studied the view through the window. He could feel the need for sleep sweeping in like tidal waters, engulfing him on all fronts. He persevered, aware that he would pass through it, find a path back to wakefulness.
The sound of the train rose and fell and then something crashed through, thumping against the side of the carriage, so loud that it startled him awake and left him shaken. He looked around at the other passengers but no one else seemed to have noticed. Yet something large had hit the side of the carriage above his window.
Possibly it had been something else, a smaller noise within the carriage that had been amplified and twisted, his senses already dislocated by sleep. He couldn’t help but look along the top of the window though, convinced that something had hit it with a forceful muffled thump.
The sound had been familiar somehow, instantly recognizable. He shuffled through his memories, stalling as it fell into place. And he knew now that the object hitting the window had been a product of his own mind, a body, wrapped up against the cold in a winter coat.
He tried hard to focus on the real world of the carriage but it had spooked him. Sleep was gnawing at him and he couldn’t help but think of her, as if she really had bounced off the side of the train. It was as if she was growing impatient waiting for him to sleep, mounting an assault now on his waking world.
It was sleep, that was all, the need for sleep. Yet he refused to yield, sensing that if she was in the shallows she’d be in the deeps too, waiting for him. He got to his feet instead, walked to the end of the carriage, looking out of the window on one side and then the other, all the time ignoring the troubled stares of the other passengers.
By the time he got to Garrington he’d passed through it again and was experiencing a sleep deprivation high. The taxi driver wanted to tell him everything the village had to offer and Alex engaged happily with him, asking him why it was a village and not a town, what its history was, tourist stuff.
The hotel was small and traditional, on a main street of restaurants and antique shops. He guessed it was low season but there were plenty of people window-shopping, wrapped and padded against the cold. There were a few people sitting around in front of the fire too, in the hotel’s large open lobby.
He checked in, made a quick tour of the room and then went back down to the reception and asked for directions to Matt’s house. He wanted to check it out before calling, so that he had some idea where he was going, what kind of place.
The receptionist was young and blank and overly made-up, the look of someone who wanted to work for a chain rather than the independent she was in. She smiled and stared at the address before saying, ‘Oh it’s not far at all. If you drive right along Main Street...’