When Seb wakes and sees the darkened bedroom and the vertical band of daylight at the edge of the curtains, his relief is immense.
Tracks of dried tears split upon his cheekbones. He is damp and hot, his muscles heavy and his mind groggy from the heavy sleep that overcame him in the middle of the day. But within the early bewilderment of waking, he is aware of a disturbance outside. A noise that issues a dreadful continuity with his dream.
Lying upon his bed, his thoughts stumble and he can’t be certain if the sound is part of the worst nightmare he’s endured in years, or whether it is a sign of a long animal moving around the external walls of the house, looking for access.
Into his mind creeps a sense of a sinewy body with a covered head, pressed into the bricks, and moving like a dog.
5
Incertitude
‘There’s so much I don’t know about you,’ Becky said, once they had returned from the restaurant and settled in the living room. Before they left the house earlier they had set side-by-side on the sofa, but now looked at each other from different sides of the room. It was the evening of another day that hadn’t passed without trauma.
Seb’s frantic invitation to Becky had been accepted and she’d arrived at the weekend, alighting from an afternoon service at Paignton with a small leopard-print case in tow.
Her failure to disguise her shock at how he looked had been immediate. A face unused to smiling, and a mouth unaccustomed to talking, as a tired but frantic mind turned upon itself, could not be concealed by a pressed shirt, smooth cheeks and aftershave.
Seb had spirited her out of the station and into his car. Her visit fell eight days after his sighting of Ewan on the pier, and Seb no longer felt safe outdoors. Even though the weather had distinguished itself with warm sunshine and cloudless skies, he’d barely been outside in four days.
Seb had been reduced to darting to and from the nearest shop to fetch essentials, all the time certain that a predator watched him while planning its next strike. To prepare for Becky’s visit, he’d resorted to home deliveries from a supermarket chain.
‘God, I love your place . . . The view. Look at it! . . . How’ve you been? . . . I finished your book about the ship on the way down. It’s different . . . Are you sure you’re okay?’ She’d said this as soon as they arrived at his house, while throwing her coat down and reacquainting herself with his home.
Seb’s place was a modernized twenties townhouse, redesigned by the previous owners in a style that now resembled a picture in a Scandinavian design magazine: open-plan upstairs, light and airy, wood and right angles, bedrooms on the first floor and the living space on the second, all powered by solar energy. The ground floor had a garage for three cars and a reception area.
When Seb first saw the house, he’d liked the idea of going downstairs to sleep, but had never been able to account for the attraction beyond the novelty value.
‘Any news on the new film?’ Becky had asked, distractedly. ‘When’s it out? Can we open the doors? I want to go on the balcony.’
‘There’s a cold wind coming off the water.’
‘It’s nineteen degrees.’
Seb had maintained the stiff smile that made his face ache. His nerves constantly jumped and the most innocuous sounds made him flinch. Though it was the departure of sound that he dreaded most of all, the unnatural silence that accompanied the harrowing presence.
Becky opened the balcony doors. Eyes closed, she inhaled deeply, savouring the coastal atmospherics in the way he’d forgotten how to. After a few minutes outside, she came indoors to sit beside Seb on the sofa. Glass of wine in hand, she’d sat tight against him and slipped a hand over his restless paws. ‘You don’t look that pleased to see me.’
‘Don’t say that. I’ve been counting the days.’
‘Then what is it? You hiding a ring behind you?’
He blanched enough to make Becky shriek with laughter.
‘I’ve . . .’ He had been unable to finish the sentence. He’d made the decision to tell her about Ewan and had rehearsed an explanation. But what he needed to unload had suddenly seemed preposterous and left him feeling awkward, a bit ridiculous too, and even craven.
Becky had stretched out one leg and raised an eyebrow, coquettishly. ‘I can’t believe you haven’t commented on these. I bought them for the weekend. You haven’t even looked at them yet.’ She was referring to the boots, spike-heeled and shining like eels to her knees. She’d worn them with a pencil skirt that had given her progress across the train platform a faint but enticing hobble. The susurration between her thighs would normally have electrified him. He should have been pleasantly uncomfortable with arousal, even greedy for her. After all, it had been a while, but now there was nothing normal about his existence and state of mind.