The Best Horror of the Year Volume Ten

HOLIDAY ROMANCE ^{MARK MORRIS}

Skelton could hear the sea from his room. As a teenager he had found the breath of the tide more soothing than a lullaby, but now, with disappointment filling up the years in between like accumulated grime, it seemed like nothing more than the death-bed respiration of a sick old man, struggling to draw air in to atrophied lungs.

The springs inside the old-fashioned mattress creaked so loudly as he sat up that it might have been the same one he had slept on over thirty years before. By contrast, the carpet that he crossed to the window was thinner and coarser than he remembered, and the Ikea wardrobe was nothing like the one he had once imagined might lead to Narnia—at least during the day, before the darkness transformed it into a shape that loomed with such sinister intent that he couldn’t close his eyes until his head was beneath the covers.

The promenade, and the beach beyond, looked as lifeless as an old postcard, which was not how he remembered them at all. Viewed through the shifting warp of rain on the window, the sea, sand and concrete seemed to smear together into a grey substance barely more substantial than mist. When Skelton blinked, the fist of the pier, with its overlong finger pointing out to sea, hovered into focus for a second before slithering back into murk. Was the dark blob that seemed to twitch half-way along the pier’s length a person? Was someone leaning over the railings, having braved the November squall? Or was it merely a huge gull perched on the upper rail?

Skelton leaned forward for a better look, but was closer to the glass than he had anticipated, and the sudden cold shock of it against his forehead made him flinch back with a gasp. He recovered almost at once, but by then the dark blob was gone—or at least he could no longer locate it.

He drew back from the window, unsettled by the notion that the figure—if it had been a figure—had darted out of sight because it had seen, or sensed, him watching it. Frowning, he crossed to the chair, also from Ikea, to the left of the bed, across which he had casually tossed the bulky waterproof jacket that Janice had bought him in the hope that if they spent every Sunday walking together in the country it would give them the time she felt they needed to save their marriage. As he zipped himself into it, he heard a scuff and a thump from the room above his. He looked up instinctively, even though he knew he would see nothing but his own ceiling, and thought about his parents.

They had had that room. Number 12 wasn’t it? He had a vivid memory of opening the glossy, pale-blue door at the end of his landing each morning and ascending the twisty staircase to the floor above. As he had climbed, the door had swung slowly shut behind him, like a door in a ghost story, trapping him momentarily in stuffy, creaking gloom. He had run up the remainder of the stairs, a little breathless and deliciously spooked, and had scuttled along the landing to tap lightly on his parents’ door.

“Yes?” It had always been his father who had answered, his voice stern and a little irritable, as if he had been interrupted in the middle of some fiddly task. It made Skelton wonder whether his parents had been happy here, whether the holiday had been as enjoyable and memorable for them as it had for him.

The instant the question occurred to him he was surprised by it. As a child, or indeed since, he had never really given a thought to his parents’ feelings. They had simply been his parents. A fixture. Unchanging. They hadn’t shown their emotions; they hadn’t expressed affection towards each other, or to him. It wasn’t that they had been cruel or unkind. On their holiday here they had bought him things – ice cream; a stick of rock; a Frisbee to play with on the beach; a paperback book to read. They had indulged his teenage enthusiasms, as much as they were able, and had allowed him his freedom.

Thinking of his parents made him sad. The fact that he had never really got to know them was something he would now be unable to remedy. It was one of many lost opportunities in his life, the majority of which had slipped away due to his own reticence, his inability—to coin any number of clichés—to step up to the plate, take the bull by the horns, put himself in the firing line.

Janice had found this aspect of his personality appealing at first. She had thought him “mysterious.” A challenge. “Still waters run deep,” she had used to say, with a smile that had seemed to suggest she alone was privy to some great secret. But as time, and their marriage, had dragged on, she had become increasingly disenchanted and disillusioned with his refusal to open up. She had craved affection, and had been unable to find it. “Getting a reaction from you is like trying to squeeze blood from a stone,” she had told him once—another overused analogy.

The thing was, Skelton had loved her. He did love her. He just hadn’t been able to find a way to show it, or even articulate his frustration. His own emotions were as inaccessible to him as… as his foetal memories. And much as he had wanted to, he could no more save his marriage than he could carry out brain surgery, or build a car engine from scratch.

“You’re not going out, Mr. Skelton?”

Mrs. Derry, the landlady of the B&B (though she referred to it as a ‘hotel’) sounded almost disapproving. Perhaps she was thinking of the effect his wet shoes and dripping clothes would have on her carpet when he returned.

“Just a quick ramble, Mrs. Derry,” he replied. “Reacquaint myself with some old haunts.”

She pursed her lips. She was a tall, angular, large-boned woman, whose tightly curled hair only served to accentuate, rather than soften, the squareness of her jaw.

“I’m afraid you won’t find the town displayed to its best advantage in this weather.”

“That’s all right. I’m wearing my rose-tinted spectacles.”

She peered at him as though he was being facetious, or at best obtuse, which only served to remind him that he had never been able to make jokes. His face and voice seemed unable to conjure the knowing hint of jollity that generally accompanied their delivery.

After a moment she said, “Dinner will be at seven.”

“I won’t be late,” he assured her. “I’m looking forward to it.”

When even this display of enthusiasm seemed not to flatter her he decided to withdraw. With a final nod, he stepped smartly out of the house, pulling the door closed behind him.

As soon as he turned to face the wind it sprang forward to slap and tug at his hair and clothes like an angry child, or perhaps one that was eager to show him something. Hunching his neck beneath the level of his collar he hurried towards the promenade, pausing on the wide road not to avoid a car, but to allow a fish and chip wrapper, blotched with grease, to flap past him at head height. The iron railings that stretched the length of the promenade for as far as he could see in either direction curved from the pier’s entrance like a pair of outstretched arms welcoming him into an expansive embrace.

He broke into a stumbling run not because he was starved of the affection this seemed to promise, but because he thought the glass ceiling that stretched across the central cluster of cafes, stalls, shops and takeaway food emporiums—all locked and shuttered now for winter—might provide him with temporary shelter from the rain. And so it did, though the wind angling in from the sea cut along the unprotected length of the pier like a ceaseless flurry of cold, sharp arrows, each of which struck him with unerring accuracy.

Though the pier remained accessible to whoever might wish to stroll along it, the fact that it was deserted made Skelton feel like an intruder. With every one of his clomping footsteps, across wooden boards worn smooth by the passage of countless feet, he expected to hear a sharp cry of reprimand at his back.

His apprehension couldn’t prevent memories that felt like magic from stirring within him, though. As a boy he had eaten candyfloss here; indeed, he had bitten into one of the most delicious things he had ever tasted, a fat hot dog that oozed fried onions smeared in ketchup over his hand. He had fed money into a Lucky Dip machine that had coughed up a flesh-coloured egg containing a yellow plastic car; he had wandered among an exhibition of mediocre waxworks; he had held on to the metal railings and turned his face up to meet the warm sun.

He had met… the girl.

What was her name? Skelton was appalled that at some point over the past three decades the information had eluded him. He had realized on the drive up, when he had been trawling through his old memories, that he could no longer remember.

He had the flavour of the girl’s name in his head, though. It had been a soft, almost dull sound. Gail? Bernie? Norma? It had been full of blunt letters, not sharp ones. She hadn’t been Tracey, or Susan, or Kate. Her name had been non-threatening. Almost bovine. It had partly been this that had drawn him to her.

Rain spattered on the glass ceiling above him, making it squirm. Stepping out from beneath the protective canopy at the end of the arcade, he scrunched up his mouth and eyes and rammed his hands into his side pockets as he angled his body towards the end of the pier. As the wind gnawed and slashed at him and the icy rain caused his scalp to contract like an over-tight cap, he wondered why he was here. He knew that he was running away, seeking solace, giving Janice the space and time she’d demanded in order to ‘reassess’ her life. But what he didn’t understand was why here, of all places. Was this run-down little seaside town really the location of his happiest memories? Had a ten-day holiday with his parents when he was fourteen really been the pinnacle of a life spanning almost five decades?

“Excuse me. Are you all right?”

At first, when Skelton turned, the woman seemed composed almost entirely of hair. It flapped and snapped around her head like ragged black wings, or thrashing tentacles, providing little more than glimpses of her face.

He felt too melancholy to be startled, though his hands did tighten on the upper rail, the metal so cold that it seemed to burn his palm. What surprised him, initially at least, was not that the woman was here, but that he was; Skelton had been so preoccupied with his thoughts that he had no recollection of having reached the end of the pier, or of removing his hands from his jacket pockets to grip the uppermost rail as the sea raged beneath him.

Realising that some response was called for, he said, “Fine.” And then as an afterthought: “Thank you.”

The woman raised an arm and used a black-gloved hand to scoop the unruly mass of hair from her face. Now Skelton could see that she was roughly his age. She was not conventionally pretty, but attractive all the same. Her fleshy, sensual lips were half-parted as though to form a question as her green eyes held his in a steady gaze.

At last she said, “Forgive me for intruding, but… well, you look as though you’ve been crying.”

“Do I?” Surprised, he unpeeled his hand from the rail and touched his cheek. Of course it was wet; he was drenched with rain. He barked a laugh. “Must be this wind, making my eyes water.”

She smiled with him, but in a way that suggested sympathy rather than mutual mirth. He broke the connection between them by looking out to sea.

“Have you just arrived?” she asked.

His head snapped back to regard her. “Yes. How did you know?” “I think you’re staying where we’re staying.” She wafted a hand towards the shore. “Mrs. Derry’s?”

“Ah.” He nodded. “Are you here with your family?”

“My husband.”

“Didn’t he fancy braving the elements?”

Now it was her turn to break eye contact. Turning her face to the sea, she gripped the upper rail with both gloved hands as though it was the safety bar on a fun fair ride. Released from her constraining arm, her hair began to thrash wildly again. “He’s not well,” she replied. “He’s confined to bed.”

“Oh dear. I’m sorry to hear that. I hope he makes a speedy recovery.”

Her reply was non-committal and after a moment Skelton slid her a sideways glance. For the first time it struck him as odd that she was here. Was it coincidence or had she followed him? But why would she? Perhaps she had sensed a kindred spirit in him? Perhaps her husband’s illness was taking its toll and she was desperate for someone to talk to?

He was toying with the idea of suggesting they retreat to a café for a cup of tea when a voice called his name.

He turned. With rapid, bow-legged strides, a balding man in a dark grey overcoat was emerging from the open-ended glass-ceilinged tunnel. As he approached he scowled fiercely, as if he intended to give whoever was responsible for the weather a piece of his mind. Skelton might have guessed he was a policeman even if he hadn’t spotted the distant white car with the central yellow stripe parked opposite the pier entrance.

Instantly he felt his stomach tighten, his extremities tingle, as though with the onset of fever. His immediate thought—his only thought—was: Janice.

“Yes?” he said, both admitting his identity and enquiring why he was being hailed.

“Mr. Marcus Skelton? Of-” The balding man gave Skelton’s full address, which made Skelton—particularly in front of the woman—feel unaccountably vulnerable.

“Yes,” he said again.

“Mr. Skelton, my name is Detective Inspector Parr. Might I have a word with you?”

“What about?”

DI Parr glanced at Skelton’s partner. “A private word, if you wouldn’t mind?” And then, to the woman, he said less officiously, “I’m sorry to intrude.”

The woman waved away the apology. “We were merely passing the time of day.” She startled Skelton by placing a hand on his arm. “Perhaps I’ll see you later? At dinner?”

Skelton nodded and she left—though her touch on his arm, light and warm despite the chill of the day and the thick jacket he was wearing, lingered.

On tenterhooks, his stomach crawling with apprehension, Skelton followed DI Parr back to the promenade’s entrance. Shouting into the wind and rain he asked again what it was about, but Parr only muttered something about finding somewhere warmer.

“Is it Janice?” Skelton asked.

“Who?”

“Janice. My wife. Has something happened to her?”

“Not as far as I know.” Parr forged ahead, either to prevent further conversation or because he was eager to get out of the rain.

Reaching the pier entrance, Skelton was surprised when Parr, instead of requesting that Skelton get into the car, swivelled like a radar dish to face a fish and chip restaurant across the road and suggested that the two of them speak over lunch. Although Skelton was not hungry, he was too intimidated to say no, and so found himself following Parr across a road that gleamed like polished steel in the rain.

“You’re not squeamish, are you?” Parr said when the two of them were seated on opposite sides of a sea green Formica tabletop. As he asked the question he rocked forward on his elbows so that Skelton could hear his low voice above the big front window beside them, which shuddered at every gust of wind.

“Why?” Skelton asked, staring at Parr through the steam rising from their plates. “Is the food here that bad?”

He was too nervous to make the joke sound like one, which was perhaps why Parr failed to smile. Instead, as he subjected his Friday Feast—extra large haddock, chips, mushy peas, bread and butter, pot of tea—to a barrage of salt, vinegar and ketchup, the DI shook his head.

“It’s an odd one, that’s all. Early this morning a dog walker made a discovery on the west beach.” He stuffed a forkful of chips into his mouth, as if by way of a dramatic pause. As Parr chewed, Skelton helped himself to a chip from his own small portion, nibbling at it while he waited for the bulge in Parr’s cheeks to transfer itself to his throat.

When it had, Parr said, “It was body parts, Mr. Skelton.”

At first Skelton thought the DI was referring to the crispy end of the fish he was sawing into.

“What was?”

“The discovery. The dog walker. She found a freezer bag with a seal to keep it watertight. It contained human body parts. A hand and an eye.”

“How horrible.”

Parr nodded. He crunched on fried batter and washed it down with a swill of tea. “We ran DNA tests.” A row of chips, speared on the tines of his fork and smothered with mushy peas, dripped greenly onto his plate. “They’re yours.”

“I beg your pardon?”

Parr popped the food into his mouth, chewed, swallowed. His face adopted an expression of compromise.

“At least,” he continued, “that’s what the results told us. We made enquiries, and when we found out you were staying at Derry’s Hotel…” he shrugged “… well, naturally we feared the worst.” His cutlery still clutched in his hands, he threw up his arms, causing ketchup to fly off his knife blade and fleck the window like blood. “But here you are! Larger than life! Which leaves us with something of a puzzle.”

Skelton stared at the DI. “What do you mean they’re mine?”

“DNA match,” Skelton said around a mouthful of fish.

Skelton continued to stare, unable to shake off the impression that the passersby on the other side of the window were covertly awaiting his reaction.

“Everyone’s DNA profile is unique,” Parr explained. “And according to our results, those body parts belong to you.”

“Then there must be some mistake,” Skelton spluttered.

“Well, obviously. Bit of an odd one, though, eh? I mean, especially with you staying here as well. Are you a frequent visitor to our little enclave, Mr. Skelton?”

“No. The last time I was here I was fourteen. Over thirty years ago.”

DI Parr tilted his head to one side. “Curiouser and curiouser.”

Skelton sat back. He could no longer even maintain a pretense of wanting his chips. “Why are you telling me this, Detective Inspector?”

Again, Parr fixed his eyes on him. “Isn’t it obvious?”

Skelton’s mind was whirling, but the DI’s scrutiny suddenly focused his thoughts. “You think I’m an imposter?”

Parr shrugged as though in apology. “It’s a natural assumption, you must admit.”

“But I’m not!” Skelton said. “I’m me. I can show you ID.”

“Which you could have stolen from the real Marcus Skelton.”

“But I am me!” Skelton was aware his voice had risen to a bleat that was causing heads to turn. He controlled himself with an effort. “How can I prove it to you?”

Suddenly Parr was all business-like. Although his meal was less than half-eaten he picked up his napkin and dabbed at his greasy lips. “If you’ll come down to the station with me, Mr. Skelton, we can take a DNA sample, run tests.” He smiled, though it didn’t reach his eyes. “Don’t worry. I’m sure this is nothing but a computer glitch. Records getting mixed up or some such. We may live in an age of technology, but that doesn’t mean our systems are not still prone to human error.”

He put his napkin down, took a final swig of tea and stood up.

“Shall we go?”

Skelton might have foregone dinner that evening if he hadn’t already told Mrs. Derry how much he was looking forward to it. Despite having not had any lunch, the afternoon’s ordeal had unsettled him so much that he was still struggling to muster an appetite by 7 p.m.

He was ready for a drink, though, and ordered a bottle of Merlot from the admittedly limited wine list. He sipped his first glass as his gaze shifted between the slithering greyness of rain on the long windows of the hexagonal dining room and the murky oils depicting various boats on stormy seas, which adorned the walls. It was almost certainly the proliferation of water, both real and artificially rendered, which made him think of the room’s floor space as a sea of crisp white tablecloths and gleaming silver cutlery. Even the sound that filled it seemed to swell and dip like the waves, an almost ambient murmur of low-key conversation interspersed with the chink and scrape of china and metal.

Preoccupied by the efforts of the melting grey landscape outside the window to maintain a sense of itself, he sensed a presence beside him. He turned, expecting to see the spotty, painfully shy girl with braces on her teeth, who Mrs. Derry employed as a waitress, leaning forward with his chosen starter of leek and potato soup.

But it wasn’t the waitress, it was the woman from the pier. From his seated position she looked impressively statuesque, her black hair, tumbling in waves over her shoulders, framing the creamy swell of cleavage above her low-cut, off-the-shoulder burgundy dress.

“Are you dining alone?” she asked.

In less than a second, Skelton’s gaze ricocheted from her cleavage, to her plump lips, to the unoccupied place setting opposite him. “Er… yes.”

“Would you care for some company?” She held up a hand, whose nails were as crimson as her mouth. “Please don’t be afraid to say no if you’d rather be alone with your thoughts. I won’t be offended.”

When Skelton glanced beyond the woman, he gained an immediate impression that the rest of the room’s occupants were hastily averting their eyes.

“Won’t you be dining with…?”

“My husband? No. He’s too ill to join us.” She sounded almost vehement.

In truth, Skelton would have liked to be left alone, though not because he didn’t find the woman attractive. In fact, he felt drawn to her, though the effect she had on him unsettled him, made him nervous, jittery even. However he felt trapped by her request. If he refused her he would be acutely aware of the two of them dining in isolation, and of the thrumming tension that that gulf would create between them.

And so, fixing a smile on his face and waving at the opposite chair, he said, “In that case… by all means…”

A heady, musky fragrance billowed from her as she sat down. Almost involuntarily Skelton felt his prick stiffening in his pants. Adjusting his position slightly, he cleared his throat. “Would you like some wine?”

Her eyes seemed to dance. “Only if you allow me to buy the second bottle.”

Again Skelton felt his smile was enforced rather than natural. He felt a muscle jerk involuntarily in his cheek as if pushed beyond its limits. “Perhaps one will be enough.”

“Perhaps.” Her own smile seemed to come easily. “But the night is young.”

Once she had ordered her food—smoked salmon for starter and pork medallions for main course—she asked, “How was your afternoon?”

It was clearly a loaded question, which she acknowledged by chuckling throatily. “Please feel free to tell me to mind my own business.”

He gulped wine and found that his answering smile was easier this time. “It was… interesting.”

“Good interesting or bad interesting?”

Reluctant thought he initially was to respond, he was surprised by how liberating he found it telling her what had occurred with Parr, and afterwards at the station. She was an attentive and sympathetic listener, and as he spoke, haltingly at first and then more easily as he lubricated his throat with wine (she matching him sip for sip), he felt his spine straightening, the stiffness in his neck and shoulders fading away.

“Poor you. What an ordeal,” she said when he had finished.

“So you believe I’m not an imposter then?”

Although they had only just finished their starters, they were already on their second bottle of wine and her eyes had become dewy. “Of course I do.”

“Why? You don’t know me from Adam.”

“I pride myself on being a good judge of character. You’re a good man, Marcus. A gentle man. I know it.”

He blushed. “I’m not sure my wife would agree.”

“Then she’s an idiot.”

He blinked in surprise, and immediately she looked contrite.

“I’m sorry, that was uncalled for.”

He felt as though he should be leaping to Janice’s defence, but as usual his response was half-hearted, almost apologetic. “She’s had a lot to put up with…”

“I’m sure you both have. It takes two to tango, as they say.”

He grunted non-commitally, then asked, “What about your husband? How long have the two of you been together?”

“It seems like forever.” Her laughter was brittle. “Sorry again. I shouldn’t be so mean. But illness does get wearing. On both partners.”

“What does he suffer from?”

She wafted a hand, as if to say, Who knows? “He’s wasting away, poor dear.” She snatched up the bottle and refilled both their glasses, which all but drained it. “One more with our main course?”

Again his response was half-hearted. “I don’t normally drink that much…”

“Me neither. But let’s push the boat out. We’re on holiday.”

When their pork medallions arrived—they had both ordered the same thing—the woman picked up the bottle and waggled it at the girl with the braces, who looked instantly alarmed. “Another one of these, dear.”

As the girl scuttled away, Skelton was struck by a sudden revelation.

“I’m sorry… I still don’t know your name.”

The woman pouted her plump lips. “Perhaps I’d prefer to maintain my air of mystery.” Then she rocked back in her chair with a laugh so shrill that heads turned. “Your face! I’m sorry, it’s mean of me to tease. My name’s Belinda.”

She reached across the table, offering a jokey handshake, which he accepted automatically. The touch of her skin on his sent pleasurable ripples through him. Her name seemed to ripple too, as if it was echoing out from the past. He felt fuzzy-edged memories becoming more solid, slotting into place. He stared at the woman, then averted his gaze when she met his eyes with her own. There was something in the look she gave him; something candid, knowing.

“Say what you’re thinking,” she said.

“I’m sorry?”

“I can see the cogs whirring away, but you’re keeping whatever you’re thinking bottled up inside. Why not just say it? I won’t be offended. And I’m fairly unshockable. In fact, my reaction might surprise you.”

He felt his face getting hot. He took a gulp of wine. What was she expecting him to say? He put down his glass a little too heavily. “I’m just… well, it sounds weird, but… we haven’t met before, have we? Before today, I mean?”

Her face was almost avid. “When were you thinking we had?”

“I don’t. That is… I’m probably mistaken. Have you been here before?”

“Not since I was a girl.”

His heart leaped. “How old were you?”

“I don’t remember. Twelve, thirteen… perhaps older. Why? Do you think we might have been teenage sweethearts?”

He reddened. He knew it was silly, but he couldn’t help feeling disappointed that she didn’t remember. He cut into his pork with a vigour he hoped would suggest that the thought was nothing but idle conjecture.

“I came here when I was fourteen. I met a girl who I think was called Belinda.”

“You think?”

“I’m pretty sure. She…” he glanced at her, then quickly away. She was staring at him again. The wine had stained her lips dark red. His voice dropped to a mumble. “She meant a lot to me at the time.”

He pushed meat into his mouth and chewed. For the next few seconds he pretended to remain preoccupied with the vegetables on his plate. There was silence from the woman. From Belinda. He wondered what she was thinking.

Finally she said softly, “Life is full of might-have-beens, isn’t it?”

By the time they had eaten dessert, finished their third bottle of wine, and washed it all down with a pot of coffee, the dining room was almost deserted. Even so, they left separately, at Skelton’s suggestion.

“We don’t want people to talk, do we?” he mumbled.

“Let them,” Belinda said, throwing a withering glance around the room. When she turned back her face immediately softened. “You’re very gallant, Marcus. A knight in shining armour.”

“I don’t know about that,” he said, blushing.

“You put yourself down too much. You know that?”

He shrugged.

“I’ll go first, shall I?” she said, standing up. Despite the amount of wine they had drunk she seemed remarkably sure-footed, which led Skelton to wonder, perhaps uncharitably, whether her husband’s illness had caused her to gravitate towards the bottle a little too often. She stepped around the table and leaned towards him. He looked up at her instinctively and she kissed him on the side of his closed mouth.

“Good night,” she murmured. “Thank you for a lovely evening.”

“Good night,” he said, his throat tight.

Back in his room, he stripped off, lay on his bed and masturbated, thinking of her. He felt sordid and ashamed, though not enough for it to affect the uncharacteristic strength of his orgasm, his semen spurting as high as his throat. He cleaned himself up using tissues from the box beside the bed, then fell into a doze, still naked and spread-eagled on top of the covers. He woke once in the night, hearing thumps and bumps from the room above him, possibly even a sharp but quickly stifled cry of pain. But his mind was thick with wine and sleep, and after dragging the duvet over his cold body he fell quickly asleep again.

The next morning he was showered and dressed before any of the other guests had stirred. He sneaked downstairs and was out of the house without alerting Mrs. Derry or any of her breakfast staff, all of who were clattering about in the kitchen. After last night he needed to clear his head, and not only because of the wine. He couldn’t stop thinking about Belinda, couldn’t stop analyzing her body language and everything she had said to him—which, in his muggy, befuddled state, seemed laden with significance.

If she was the girl he had met over thirty years ago, was she aware of the past link between them and was simply being coy by pretending not to remember? But how could she be the same person? The coincidence was too great to be acceptable, unless she had manipulated the situation in some way.

But if so, it suggested not only a prior knowledge of his life, but of his movements and intentions, which was clearly impossible. How could she have known he was coming here? He had told no one—indeed, his decision had been made on a whim—besides which, hadn’t she said that she and her husband had checked into Derry’s Hotel before him?

Of course, she could have been lying—in fact, she may not even have a husband—but why would she? Was she merely a stranger who had fixated on him? Was she mentally unstable? Or was she what she claimed to be—a lonely, perhaps sexually frustrated woman with a sick husband, who was seeking a little freedom from the daily grind by way of companionship, perhaps even intimacy?

Skelton had half-expected her to be waiting by his door when he had followed her up the stairs last night. When she hadn’t been he had felt half-relieved, half-disappointed. He had been unable to help wondering whether he had fallen short of her expectations in some way, whether he had been deemed somehow unsuitable. He had dreamed of her last night. In the dream she had prowled around his bed, enticing but forever out of reach.

It was the sight of the police cars that dragged him from his reverie. There were four of them, in a line beyond the pier entrance, parked alongside the promenade. Uniformed officers were milling about, preventing sightseers—not that there were many at this hour—from descending the steps to the sands. A further deterrent were the flimsy barriers of yellow tape printed with the words POLICE CRIME SCENE DO NOT CROSS, which had been erected across every potential access point to the beach.

Skelton, who had been walking towards all this activity without initially registering it, came to an abrupt halt. When DI Parr suddenly appeared at the top of the stone steps and ducked beneath the tape barrier he considered turning round and heading in the opposite direction. But then, as if Skelton had given off some sort of signal, Parr looked up and spotted him. Skelton had no choice now but to approach the Detective Inspector; anything else would have looked odd or suspicious. Resisting the urge to raise a hand in greeting, he walked across, trying to keep his movements as casual as possible.

“Good morning, Mr. Skelton,” DI Parr said with a hint of smugness, as if he had caught Skelton out in some way. “This is quite a coincidence.”

“I was out for a stroll and saw the cars,” Skelton tried not to mumble.

“Bit early to be out, isn’t it?”

Skelton gestured at his head. “I needed some fresh air. I had a bit too much wine last night.”

“Celebrating, were we?”

“Not at all. Just…” Skelton couldn’t think what to add. Parr stared at him, as if alert for any sign that might incriminate the other man.

Skelton looked away, nodding towards the police tape stretched across the entrance to the steps and the uniformed officers standing guard. “What’s going on?”

“Developments, Mr. Skelton,” Parr said. “I trust you have no immediate plans to leave our fair town?”

Skelton shook his head. “I’ll be here for a few more days, at least.”

Parr bared his teeth in a grin. “Glad to hear it. Plenty of time to chat then before you go.”

“Will we need to?” Skelton asked, and immediately wondered whether his question made him sound facetious.

“Well, I assume you’ll want to know the results of your DNA test?”

“Oh. Yes. Though I know they’ll confirm I’m me.”

Although Parr smiled with apparent warmth, Skelton found himself repressing a shudder. “I’m sure they will, Mr. Skelton.”

Without knowing why, Skelton had been half-dreading encountering Belinda at breakfast, though when she didn’t appear that morning he was disappointed. He wondered whether she was avoiding him. Perhaps she felt that the wine had made her too indiscreet last night, though he couldn’t specifically recall anything either of them had said that they needed to be embarrassed about. He worked his way with stolid efficiency through his full English, then trudged upstairs. He ought to make plans for the day, though just now his room felt like a refuge.

Once in it, though, he felt nothing but restless. He crossed to the window, then back again to the bed. He perched on its edge, bouncing gently on the springs, and stared up at the ceiling.

All at once he came to a decision. He stood up, crossed the room and stepped out on to the landing.

As he approached the door at the end—as glossy as he remembered, albeit cream now rather than pale blue—he told himself it was perfectly reasonable of him to check up on her. If her husband was there he would simply explain that he and Belinda had been chatting last night over dinner, and that when she hadn’t turned up for breakfast that morning he had become a little concerned, given her husband’s illness. He would ask if the two of them needed anything, if he could help them in any way. Surely Belinda’s husband wouldn’t be suspicious of his motives? He had nothing to be suspicious about. If anything, he would almost certainly be grateful. Perhaps he and Skelton might even become friends.

Even so, he felt nervous as the door to the room once occupied by his parents, and now by Belinda and her husband, came into sight. The twisting staircase and upper landing were just as he remembered them; even the door at the bottom of the stairs had creaked shut behind him, as it had always used to. He raised a hand, hesitated a moment, then knocked on the door. “Yes?” said his father sternly—though only in his imagination.

In reality his knock was answered with silence. Skelton leaned forward and put his ear to the door. He knocked again. Did he hear a shuffling thump from inside the room—or was it from elsewhere in the house?

“Belinda?” he said, and immediately wondered whether he was being too familiar. If he and Janice had been in that room, and an unknown man had knocked on the door and spoken his wife’s name, how might that make him feel?

He tried to remedy the situation—if, indeed, it needed remedying. “It’s Mr. Skelton from downstairs. We met yesterday. I just thought I’d pop up to see if… if you were both all right.”

If there had been a sound from the room, it had faded to silence now. Suddenly an image came to Skelton’s mind: Belinda crouched on the other side of the door, facing a vague figure who was half propped up in bed, a finger pressed fiercely to her lips. It was so vivid a picture that Skelton felt unsettled by it. He waited a moment longer and then tiptoed away, taking the twisting stairs slowly so as not to make them creak.

Although it had started to drizzle again, he decided to go for a walk. Leaving the B&B he turned right, away from the pier and the police activity beyond it. After a quarter of a mile the town’s buildings petered out, as did the beach, the strip of grey sand squeezed increasingly thinner between the incoming tide and a jumble of craggy rock formations until it disappeared altogether. The rocks, black as fire damage, swelled gradually into a curving cliff face that enclosed the bay. A coastal path, edged with spiny marram grass and tangled clumps of tough, springy bracken, formed a deep groove that meandered across the top of the cliffs. The path sloped uphill for at least two miles before levelling out at the top, from where, Skelton supposed, you could turn to see the town spread out below you. Despite the weather, he decided to walk as far as he could, in the hope that the psychological baggage he carried with him would become increasingly lighter the more distance he put between himself and civilization. His eventual hope was that if he walked far enough it would become entirely weightless, leaving him free.

It was a fanciful notion, but it was nice to entertain it nonetheless. It was nice to be surrounded by the drizzle too. Although it was an isolating experience, he felt protected by it, rather than besieged. Perhaps being alone was his natural state; certainly he felt calmer, less anxious, when he had no one to answer to. What was that old saying? Hell is other people. Much as he loved Janice, perhaps the biggest mistake of his life had been to allow himself to become involved. By doing so, he had ruined not only his life, but Janice’s too.

Had it come to that? Were their lives ruined beyond repair? Skelton felt guilty about the fact that in the early days of their marriage, Janice had expressed a desire to have children; a desire which had subsequently dwindled and died, perhaps due to his lack of enthusiasm.

Was it too late for her now? Was it too late for both of them? How old was she? Forty five? Struggling up the path, he glanced ahead of him, and saw a standing stone at the crest of the slope, silhouetted against the murky sky.

Suddenly his right foot, coming down on a nub of rock slick with lichen, slid from under him. He stumbled, would have fallen on his knees if he hadn’t put his hands out to break his fall. Within seconds he had regained his balance. He straightened, rubbing his hands together before holding them palm-up to the drizzle to clean them. Then he froze.

The standing stone had gone.

Coldness prickled through him, as if the drizzle had seeped into his body. But almost immediately his mind clicked back on to its rational course. He must have been mistaken; it must have been a person, not a standing stone, he had seen. He had only glanced at it, and the reason it had seemed featureless was because the sky was so murky it stripped light, and therefore detail, from everything.

And now that Skelton recalled, hadn’t he subconsciously thought of the stone as womanly? He had assumed it was because he was thinking about Janice, but perhaps that wasn’t the case. Scrambling up the slope, he called out, “Hello?”

Only the hissing of rain in the undergrowth greeted him. But when he reached the top of the slope, didn’t he glimpse a dark blur of movement on the path ahead, just before it bobbed behind a protruding thicket of bracken at the next corner?

“Hello?” he shouted again. “Anyone there?” It occurred to him that if the figure was a woman, then she might be alarmed by his presence, and more particularly by his apparent over-eagerness to make her acquaintance.

He paused on the path, breathing hard. He had thought he might hear her brushing through the undergrowth as she progressed up and along the muddy path ahead of him, but the persistent white noise of drizzle muffled all other sound.

Should he actively pursue her? If he did, it would only be to satisfy his curiosity. And then would come the awkwardness of explanations and apologies, of exchanging comments about the terrain and the weather simply to be polite. Plus, of course, they’d be faced with the prickly question of how they should proceed from this point—together or singly? If together they would be forced to converse, because silence between strangers is always embarrassing; and if singly, it would be like a mutual snub, each of them making clear that neither relished, nor desired, the other’s company.

Skelton told himself that none of this should matter, and yet somehow it did. As a result, he decided to wait a few minutes, give the woman time to move ahead. Because the foliage grew to chest height on either side of the path, and because frequent outcroppings of jagged black rock rose up to form mini valleys along the route, Skelton was not entirely sure how close he was to the summit of the cliffs.

As it turned out, he was closer than he thought. After waiting for five minutes, he began walking again, and a few minutes after that he emerged from between clumps of bracken to find the sky, grey and marbled like old cheese, expanding before him. He clenched his teeth as the drizzle, propelled by a wind now unencumbered by obstacles, flew at him almost horizontally, stinging his face. To his left, in his peripheral vision, he glimpsed movement.

He turned, squinting against the rain, and saw a figure standing at the edge of the promontory a hundred or so metres away. The figure was silhouetted against the mist-grey sea that seemed to merge seamlessly with the sky on the horizon. Though the figure had its back to him, Skelton felt an instant jolt of recognition at the sight of the masses of wind-swept black hair that flapped and writhed around its head.

“Belinda!” he shouted, moving towards her, but his voice was snatched away by the wind.

He was still fifty metres from the woman when she spread her arms out wide and dropped forward, disappearing over the cliff.

Skelton screamed and broke into a run, though all at once his legs felt as if they were made of loosely connected splints of wood. He couldn’t have seen what he thought he had seen. It was a mistake, a trick; perhaps the woman (Belinda?) had known he was there, and simply wanted to shock him for some reason.

He reached the promontory and fell to his knees, shaking as if with fever. He felt so faint, so uncoordinated, that he couldn’t trust himself not to stumble forward and follow the woman over the edge. Experiencing a sudden attack of vertigo, he dropped on to his front and crawled the last few metres, using his fingers to drag himself across the soft, wet ground. Craning his neck, he peered over the cliff, dreading—and already flinching from—what he might see.

There was nothing. Nothing but white, foamy waves swirling around the black rocks far below.

Had he been somehow mistaken? Or had the woman’s body already been dragged out to sea? He looked further out, fearful of glimpsing something dark and shapeless bobbing in the water, but the sea beyond the shoreline was like grey, unbroken skin.

After a few moments he slithered back from the cliff edge and pushed himself, with difficulty, to his feet. He swayed and shuddered like a drunk, his upper body hunched over. What he had seen—thought he’d seen—had sapped the energy from him, turned him into a shambling wreck. He began to stumble back the way he had come, desperate to fetch help, or at least alert the authorities. He wished now that he hadn’t consistently and stubbornly refused to buy a mobile phone, despite Janice’s exhortations.

How he managed to get back to town he had no idea. It seemed to take an age, and he spent the majority of the journey slipping and stumbling, half-falling down the path, his eyes blinded by rain and tears, his ability to think obliterated by the pulse of shock filling his head.

Eventually, however, he made it, and ran all the way along the promenade until he reached the place where he had spoken to Parr several hours earlier. There was only a single panda car there now, and two uniformed officers guarding the steps, one of whom was taking shelter beneath the awning of a seafront café, sipping tea from a Styrofoam cup. He emerged only when Skelton pounded to a halt in front of his colleague and doubled over as if about to be sick. In truth, Skelton thought he was going to be sick; it was only when he stopped running that he realised how exhausted he was. His head was pounding, his lungs were burning, and beneath his several layers of clothing his body was pouring with sweat. When one of the officers spoke to him—he had no idea which—the voice seemed to reach him through a long, echoing tunnel: “Are you all right, sir?”

Pulling himself together with an effort, Skelton spat out his story in disjointed segments, as if they were chunks of glass. He had to repeat himself several times, and answer a great many questions, to make himself understood, but at last, at his behest, the two officers agreed to inform Parr.

By the time the DI arrived, Skelton was sitting at a table inside the café whose awning the police officer had been sheltering beneath, his hands curled around a mug of strong hot coffee. Steam rose from his hair and clothes as he dried out beside a wall-mounted heater, but he was still shivering. Though his thoughts were mostly turned inward, he knew that the café owner was eyeing him suspiciously, and had only allowed him to take refuge in the café on the condition that one of the police officers remain on the premises. What he must look like to alarm the café owner Skelton had no idea—not that he really cared.

DI Parr sat opposite him and spoke softly. “Mr. Skelton?”

Skelton’s eyes flickered to regard him.

“Mr. Skelton, I understand from my officers that you’ve had a very distressing experience. Now, I know you’ve already told them your story, but I’d be grateful if you could repeat to me what you claim to have seen this afternoon.”

Skelton told his story again, quietly and more coherently this time. When he had done Parr excused himself and went away to inform the coastguard and make enquiries. Eventually he returned and sat down. Without preamble he said, “Mr. Skelton, you claim that this woman, Belinda, is staying in the same hotel as you?”

Skelton nodded. “With her sick husband, yes. They’re in the room above mine.”

“And you’re quite sure about that?”

Skelton stared into Parr’s eyes. “Yes. At least… it’s what she told me. Why?”

Parr sighed and sat back. “According to Mrs. Derry, the owner and manager of the hotel, the top floor is currently unoccupied. Furthermore she says that there is no woman matching the description you gave us staying in the hotel, with or without a sick husband. Neither did Mrs. Derry recognise the name ‘Belinda’.” He shrugged. “It seems you’ve been hoodwinked, Mr. Skelton.”

Skelton felt as if something was unwinding inside him. “But… I had dinner with her last night.”

“That’s as maybe—but the woman you describe is not a resident at the Derry Hotel.”

Skelton felt panicky; he had to resist an urge to grip Parr’s sleeve. “But you do believe me, don’t you? You do believe she exists?”

“I have no reason not to,” Parr said carefully.

“Even though you still think I might be an imposter?”

Parr shook his head. “The results of the DNA test came through earlier today. I’m satisfied that you’re who you claim to be.”

“So what about the… things you found on the beach?”

Parr grimaced. “Currently unidentified. The earlier results must have been wrong. As I suggested before, a computer error.”

Skelton thought of the uniformed officers outside, of the police tape stretched across all access points to the beach. He was still struggling to fight down the feeling of panic inside him. “What about this morning? What did you find?”

Parr looked at him shrewdly, narrowing his eyes. Then he shrugged and said, “More male body parts. Sealed in plastic freezer bags like before. There was a foot in one. A tongue and a… a more intimate part of the anatomy in another.”

“So who do they belong to?”

Again Parr shrugged. “I wouldn’t like to speculate. The inquiry is ongoing.”

Skelton slumped in his seat. He clenched his fists to stop shudders from rippling through him. “I’m cold and wet,” he said. “I’d like to return to my hotel now.”

Parr looked surprised, but he raised a hand and gestured vaguely towards the door. “Certainly, Mr. Skelton. You’re free to go whenever you like.”

Back at the B&B Skelton went up to his room, stripped off his jacket and dropped it on the floor. Grabbing his towel from the rack over the radiator he sat down on the edge of the bed and rubbed at his wet hair. He felt so sapped by all that had happened that even this simple yet momentarily vigorous action enervated him. Allowing the towel to slip limply to the floor, he sank back on to the bed, arms stretched out like the woman (Belinda?) who had dropped like a diver off the edge of the cliff.

He stared up at the ceiling, watching the remains of a cobweb, clotted with dust, quiver on the light fitting. From the room above he heard three deliberate thumps, as if someone was trying to attract his attention, followed by a groan.

Echoing the groan, he pushed himself into a sitting position. His heart thumped hard, as if even this amount of activity was putting a strain on him. He stared up at the ceiling until his eyes started to ache, but the sound was not repeated. With another groan he rose to his feet and clumped heavily across the room to the door.

The B&B was so silent as he stepped out on to the landing that he might have believed he was the only person in the building. Slowly, as if moving underwater, he plodded along the landing to the cream door at the end. After opening it he began to ascend the twisting staircase that lay beyond, his breath rattling at the base of his throat, his leg muscles straining. The door slowly swung shut behind him, enfolding him in gloom. A minute later he reached the upper landing. He crossed to room 12 and raised his hand to knock on the door.

Before he could do so, he heard a sound coming from inside. A sigh? Or perhaps a whispered invitation to enter? Unclenching his fist he lowered his arm, wrapped his hand around the door handle and twisted. There was a grinding clunk as the latch disengaged. He pushed the door inward and stepped forward.

The room beyond was wreathed in shadow, only a few slivers of light leaking in around the edges of the closed curtains over the single window. The window was directly opposite the door through which Skelton had entered, but the main focus of the room was to the right of that, tucked into an alcove. Here was a bed, and what appeared to be a figure in it. Skelton could make out a dark hump of bedclothes, and the blurred shadowy oval of a head creating a depression in the centre of a faint glimmer of white pillow. Reluctant to relinquish his grip on the doorknob, he leaned forward.

“Hello?” he hissed.

The bedclothes shifted. From the oval of the head came an inarticulate groan.

Skelton took another step into the room.

“Are you all right? Do you need help?”

Another rustle of bedclothes. Another groan. Heart thumping, Skelton crossed to the window, tugged back one of the curtains.

The light was grainy, as though flecked with dust motes. The air was thick, stale. Trembling, Skelton turned from the window to confront whatever was in the bed.

It was a man, and he was shuddering as though with fever. A bandage wrapped around his head was slanted down on one side to cover his left eye, from which a brownish liquid had seeped, staining the white gauze. From the neck down the man’s body was covered with a thin white sheet, which was smeared and splotched with dark stains. With a mounting, dream-like sense of horror, Skelton crossed to the bed and pulled the sheet aside. Though he opened his mouth to scream, the shock that seized him rendered him unable to do so.

The man was naked, and incomplete. Blood-stained bandages covered the stump of his left hand and right foot. More bandages were wrapped around his mid-riff and upper thighs to create a sort of nappy, the front of which, where the bulge of his genitals should be, was dark with blood. The sheet beneath him was similarly blood-stained—sopping in places. Clearly the man’s horrific wounds had been bandaged not in the hope that he might recover from them, but simply so that he wouldn’t die from them too soon.

Sickened with horror and pity, Skelton returned his attention to the man’s face. The man opened his mouth and gave another gurgling, inarticulate groan, and now Skelton could see why he had been unable to form words, to call for help.

His tongue had been cut out.

Skelton opened his mouth to offer words of comfort, of reassurance, but before he could say anything the man suddenly reached out with his remaining hand—his right—and grabbed Skelton’s wrist. Skelton’s instinctive response was to jerk away with a cry of revulsion, but he forced himself to remain where he was, and even reached out to place his own right hand over the man’s.

And then he froze. He stared at the hand that was gripping his wrist. As a boy he had fallen from a tree and sustained a gash on his hand that had eventually become a ridge of white scar tissue, shaped like a question mark, beneath the knuckle of his third finger. Impossibly the man had an identical scar in the same place. Slowly, with a sense of dawning realization, Skelton raised his head and peered at the man’s face once again.

Because of the bandage wrapped around the man’s head and eye, Skelton hadn’t seen it at first, but now it was so evident that it couldn’t be unseen. The man’s face might be pale and etched with pain, his lips and chin flecked with blood from his mutilated tongue, but Skelton was in no doubt whatsoever that the man in the bed was him; that he and this poor creature were one and the same.

He could see from the expression in the man’s remaining eye that he knew Skelton had finally realised the truth—and not only that, but that he was grateful for the fact. The victim opened his mouth and gave another gurgling groan, and this time Skelton heard an appeal in it, a plea—not for help, but for something else, something more merciful than mercy itself.

All his life Skelton had shunned responsibility, and even now his instinct was to fetch someone who might be better equipped to deal with this situation: DI Parr or Mrs. Derry.

But there was no one better equipped. This was his life. His decision. And it was time that he finally faced up to that.

Carefully, gently, he slid the pillow from underneath the man’s head.

“It’s all right,” he told him. “The pain will be over soon. I promise.”

Then, with love, he placed the pillow over the man’s face and pressed down as hard as he could.