Chapter Four
Phinn woke slowly, not so much to a world of hurt, more a universe of agony. His back ached and his body felt as though a field of virulent nettles had risen up against him. Everything stung, throbbed or twinged. He let out a sigh and lay back on the inflatable air bed, which had lost a considerable amount of inflation during the night and now formed a kind of plastic skin between him and the floorboards.
A knife blade of sunlight had inserted itself between the ragged curtains and the illumination it provided let him see the dust lying thickly on the window, the cobwebs that adorned the ceiling like grubby tinsel and the mouse droppings that condimented the floor and over which he’d tiptoed reluctantly on his way to bed. Hell. He sighed, and even that hurt.
He’d been hoping that the whole Riverdale thing had been a dream, that he’d wake up back in the flat in Bristol with the king-size bed, the carpets and the clutter. To think he’d once wanted minimalism, bare space, that he and Suze had fought many of their lesser squabbles over her inability to stop collecting and his unbending desire for clear floors.
Suze. Even the memory of the name squeezed his heart. Less now than it had; time — as everyone repeatedly told him — was a healer. But he’d discovered that it was an inept nurse, sticking plasters over wounds that ripped open anew without warning, leaving him bleeding all his hope for a future into the dark.
With another sigh that made his ribs click, Phinn rolled over, reluctantly climbed out from underneath the duvet, and began to get dressed, sniffing as he went. Damp. Definitely damp. The house seemed to suck the moisture from the air and deposit it straight into any fabric that he’d brought with him. His jeans smelled mildewed after minutes on any floor and all his T-shirts were turning mottled. But better than the flat as he remembered it, would always remember it, with the silence and the half-packed suitcases.
Yawning and scratching idly at his chest, he made his way down the creaky staircase and into the kitchen, where he’d left the primus and a loaf of bread, if it wasn’t already growing a lawn of mould, feeling the need for coffee writhing through him. Coffee. Proof that intelligent life existed on this planet. Licking his lips he reached a hand to the corner cupboard and jumped several feet into the air when the kettle was pushed into his hand.
‘What the—’
‘Keep your PhD on, you four-eyed twat,’ the blonde-haired visitation said, leaning back against the unlit iron range. ‘What, didn’t you think I might come looking for you? Shove the kettle on, some of us have been up all night with inadequate GPS trying to find this place.’
With the feeling that he was moving through a dream, Phinn lit the primus and complied.
* * *
Cautiously, I turned off the main village street and into the driveway of Howe End. The marks of tractor wheels had bitten deeply into the mud and half-hearted gravel, churning it into an almost impassable Somme of high-sided ruts and stagnant pools and my jodhpur boots only came up to my ankles. I tiptoed over the highest peaks, trying to avoid breaking the surface crust and being plunged into depths of generational frog-hatcheries.
I’d never been here before. Never needed to. Howe End had been the home of Mr Patterdale, a semi-reclusive old farmer who’d somehow managed to persuade the truculent owners of the village shop to deliver his groceries and had only occasionally been seen from a distance, pottering around his sizeable garden. He’d waved to me once when I’d cantered by on the ridge that overlooked the house, but since I’d been rather afraid that I was trespassing and that he was simply waving to warn me off his land, I’d not waved back and felt rather bad when I’d found out that he’d died the following week.
The house was impressive, if your tastes ran to the shambling Gothic, but in this early spring sunshine, with the mellow walls and creeper-adorned frontage, it looked attractively Homes dressed all in black that made him look as though he’d draped himself in shadows. I stopped, and said without thinking, ‘You look really different with your clothes on.’
Behind me Link snorted like Stan.
‘Right. Yeah, thanks a lot.’ Phinn pushed off the wall and came over. ‘And thanks for the wallet. I’d forgotten about that.’
There was an impasse during which I could hear Link stifling laughter. ‘Right. I’ll be off then,’ I said, performing a tricky turn so as not to walk slap into his chest. ‘I’ll just . . . yes. Right.’
‘Oh for God’s sake, Baxter, you can’t let her leave without at least offering coffee.’ Link moved over to where a tiny camping stove was supporting an old-fashioned kettle. ‘Come on, man, you’ve got a woman in here! Stage one of your plan to prevent an overdeveloped right arm and cellophane bedsheets!’ He pulled a set of mugs from a cupboard. ‘Although, if she’s already seen you starkers, I reckon you’ve got up as far as stage five, with a possible option on stages six through to nine.’
‘Ignore him,’ Phinn said with a sigh, taking the wallet from me and pushing it straight into his back pocket. ‘God knows, I try to.’ The light from the little window was reflecting on his glasses so I couldn’t see his eyes, but there seemed to be a touch of humour in his voice.
‘But I’m like a movie zombie.’ Link poured water, which looked to be hot rather than boiling, into mugs and passed me one. ‘I just won’t lie down and die. There’s no milk, by the way, it went off. Rather like Baxter.’ He shot a meaningful glance at Phinn, who was back to leaning against the wall again.
‘Look, Link—’
I wrinkled my nose. ‘How come you can’t believe in a place called Riverdale, which happens to be a dale with a river in it, and yet you’ve got a friend called Link?’
‘Pure bad luck on my part.’ Phinn sipped at his coffee, grimaced and put the mug down on a stone slab.
‘There is a long and interesting history to my name.’ Link took the final mug and began drinking from it without any kind of acknowledgement of the awfulness of its contents. ‘And one day I shall explain it to you.’
‘It’s a character in a video game.’
‘Shut up, man, I’m trying to build a sense of allure and mystery. All right, maybe it’s not that long and interesting but I’m trying to engage in social chit-chat here, people, come on, help me out. Don’t you two ever talk?’
‘We only met yesterday.’ I sipped my coffee. It was lukewarm and bitter, rather like the reception I’d got from Phinn.
‘Wow. And you’ve got his clothes off already? That is impressive.’ Link toasted me with his mug.
‘It wasn’t like that.’ Phinn came to my conversational rescue. ‘Molly found me up on the moors. I was . . . ah, I’d . . . had a bit of an episode.’
Link’s mouth twisted. ‘What the hell is it with you? Are you determined to screw up every single thing you touch right now?’
‘I wanted . . . look, never mind, this isn’t the time and place for this discussion.’ Phinn rolled his eyes in my direction, clearly trying to indicate that he didn’t want to talk with me in the room. Which was fine, because with the way these two were squaring up to each other, I didn’t want to be in the room either.
‘I’d better go. You’ve obviously got things to talk about.’ I put my mug down, its ceramic clatter as it hit the stone work surface echoed into the chilly silence. ‘It was nice to meet you both.’
I got as far as the dimly lit entrance, and was trying to find the door handle, when Phinn caught up with me.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’ve behaved badly. I continue to behave badly, and having the bloody conscience-fairy there turn up unexpectedly hasn’t helped.’ He scrubbed a hand through his hair. ‘It was kind of you to bring my wallet back. Thank you.’
‘’S all right,’ I muttered, desperate to be gone.
‘And I’m sorry I left yesterday without saying thanks.’ This time he smiled. ‘That really was badly behaved of me, and I can’t even blame Link. You were very kind to go to all that trouble for a guy who could have been — well, anyone.’
‘Are you really an astrophysicist?’
The change of conversational direction seemed to baffle him. ‘What?’ A frown made his glasses slide forward down his nose until he poked them back. ‘Yes. Why? Do you want to know what my thesis was?’
‘You don’t look like a scientist, that’s all.’
‘He’s got a Doctor Who T-shirt!’ came a voice from the kitchen. ‘And he quotes Monty Python .’
Phinn gave me a sudden grin. The shadows under his eyes disappeared. ‘I can’t keep apologising, can I? Yes, I’m an astrophysicist. If you ever find yourself short of someone to do a little deep space research, well, you know where I am.’ He opened the front door, being able to locate the knob in the deep gloom. ‘Thanks again, Molly.’
‘And UFOs! Did he tell you about the UFOs?’ Link called and the smile fell away from Phinn’s face.
‘Goodbye,’ he said briefly as though he’d already lost any interest he might have had in me, and the door closed with a swing and a slam that told me he’d gone back inside before I’d even reached the end of the porch.