Chapter Twenty-Six
Edward took the road home at midnight, thinking: That was the longest day of my life.
On his moped in the dark he saw two missed calls from Kim.
He pulled over at Pinn Cove and cut the engine.
But when he called Kim her number went to voicemail.
He guessed she had called when she was with Stevie, where the signal was intermittent.
He said, ‘Been a long day. Let’s chat tomorrow.
Apparently the army are coming down. Or – are they here already? I’ll be home in two mins.’
He slowed his bike at the approach to his house.
The light from the moped swished left and right across the building like a prison camp beam, illuminating brickwork and leaning joists.
Everywhere it fell revealed an imperfection – gaps in the brickwork, mildewed fascia boards, doors and windows that seemed to lean and tilt.
In fact the whole house looked like a corkscrew, with six rooms downstairs, three above, two, then one at the top.
The twist in the body of the building had been caused by the ground moving over years.
The day had twisted like the house: Nina, Veitch, Jordan, the live show, the massive media pile-on.
It was not his story any more, but he had been the first to break it.
Hadn’t he left a light on? Perhaps the electrics had gone again? God, he was so tired. He could sleep for a week. Tomorrow, Monday, there would be more of it.
There was a small, solar-powered downlight that registered movement screwed to the side wall of the house, and when it lit up he saw the side return was open.
He was starting to get annoyed at the version of himself that had left the house the previous day.
He had not been hurried; he could not excuse himself by saying he knew what the weekend would bring.
All lights off, side door open? His pushbike was visible, and that would probably get a drug addict thirty quid for his next fix.
He was asking to be burgled, and he was lucky no one had tried.
He pushed the moped’s kickstand downwards with his foot and left it on the drive, walking carefully forwards in the dark towards the downlight, as he removed his crash helmet.
Now his ears were uncovered, he heard the distant whoosh of the sea.
He had always told friends and family never to walk in the garden in darkness because you could easily go over the edge and kill yourself on the rocks below.
He turned on his phone light to make sure he did not suffer that fate.
The garden was supposed to last another hundred years, and then half of it had disappeared one afternoon, so he could not always be sure the lawn ended where he had left it in the morning.
His torch showed him solid ground, the grass he had mown only three days earlier. He saw his feet, brown lace-ups stained with dirt, push into the dark grass, the shadow shaking with every movement of his hand.
Edward reached the end of the garden and stopped a yard short of the cliff edge.
He closed his eyes and felt the wind around him.
Just the gentlest breeze, not cold, wrapping him, cupping him.
He thought to himself, Who throws radiation into a pizza restaurant in Sidmouth and kills a little girl?
And an answer came, as if on the wind: No one. No one does that.
If he had had the lawn chairs at the end of the garden, he would have sat down and fallen asleep outside, which he had done many times before in the warm season, his busy brain soothed by the sea.
He turned to see where they were. They were by the house.
His eyes seemed to catch movement near the back doors. Imagination was a powerful deceiver.
He turned back to the sea.
Now there was a noise. Unmistakable movement in the dark, by the side wall. He turned back again and – with a thrill of panic – saw shapes moving across the garden towards him.
There were two. Their movement had triggered the sensor in the side passage to come on again, so the figures became simultaneously more visible and impossible to see: tall black shapes like spirits.
‘Hello?’ he said, because they were only yards away now, close enough for him to hear a voice. They were dressed like police. ‘Officers, what is it?’
But were they police? His heart banged like a drum. The outfits were ill-fitting, the trousers too short, and the two figures wearing them were huge. They wore peaked caps with visors. Was he asleep? Was he dreaming this?
No. He felt the grass underfoot. He raised his phone light to see their faces, but as he did so the phone was swept out of his hand.
A mask.
These were not human faces. He was looking at latex masks, pulled all the way over their heads. When they spoke or made noises, the mouths did not move.
‘Stop the questions. Do you understand? No more questions.’
The voice was so muffled, he couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman.
‘Stop the fucking questions,’ said the second person, also sotto voce. This speaker held a walking stick. Knobbled wood, the outline distorted by the knuckles and knots all along the surface. They seemed to be in pain, groaning as they spoke. ‘Do you understand? Fucking arrogant twat.’
The person raised the stick and swung it at his head, missing by inches.
He was so shocked by the confrontation, by losing his phone, that he took a step back … and then jerked forward as he remembered how close he was to the edge of the cliff.
The two intruders rushed him in that instant and grabbed him, shook him, shouted at him – always the same thing – ‘Stop the QUESTIONS! No more fucking QUESTIONS!’ – but one of them seemed to be causing themselves as much pain as they were doing to him, and screamed as they moved their body as if they were being struck by their own blows.
Edward tripped and fell. When he was on the ground, on his front, they delivered kicks to his ribs and kidneys that made him cry out in agony.
One sank heavily onto his legs, their shins and knees grinding into his muscles, grinding to the bone until he screamed again.
Meanwhile the second attacker remained standing, wheezing and moaning as if they were having a heart attack, pushing the walking stick into his back, searching for the line of his spine.
‘No more questions, bonehead.’
And then they were gone. The one grinding their knees into Edward’s body got up with a fleet movement, then seemed to help the other one escape.
Leaning heavily on the stick, the second attacker yelped at every step they took.
They shrank in Edward’s line of sight like black spectres, heading towards the back of the house, into the side passage and escape.
Edward had no phone.
He lay in the garden, shaking like a leaf, panicking, shuddering, crying, murmuring to himself, dreading their return, until the first light of dawn came at four and he knew he was safe.