And maybe Steven had drunk here once.
Tom sighed and took a drink. Jo spotted his instant mood change but ignored it. He thanked her silently, smiled, and made a joke about the young family that had just come in. They had a daughter and son, both under five, and the parents looked hassled and strained. The children stared around the pub wide-eyed, marking places for forthcoming expeditions and items to investigate as soon as their parents turned their backs.
He might have grandchildren that age, if Steven hadn't been killed.
Tom tipped his beer, and as he was looking into the bottom of the glass King's face came back at him, pale and haunted by what he had seen. He had obviously wanted to tell Tom everything, and yet from that first moment in the pub he had seemed reticent about speaking. He had let out a few details, but everything he said inspired a dozen more questions. And then he had left the map.
Why? What could Nathan King gain from revealing any of this? Unless it really was as he said: Maybe sharing my nightmares will lessen them.
"Do you remember how he used to like vampires and werewolves?" Jo said. Neither of them ever had to say who they were talking about.
"And not just when he was a kid," Tom said, smiling. "There was always something going on with him. He always liked to think about things differently."
"Just like his father," Jo said, smiling. "I never understood the fascination." She was moving her wineglass around in small circles, setting the wine swirling, staring into its centre as if seeing the past in there. "Stuff like that always seems so nasty."
"I think maybe that is the fascination," Tom said. "Finding nastier things than anything you'll meet in the world. Reading about them. Facing them."
"Still, there's nicer things to read about and watch."
Like war, and death, and murder, Tom thought, but he said nothing.
"I wonder if he'd still be into all that stuff if he were still with us," she said, setting the glass down and watching the wine settle. She looked up at Tom, eyebrows raised.
"The person he would have been is someone we'll never know," Tom said. "Ten years is a long time."
"A stranger," Jo said sadly, and she turned and looked out the window. A street lamp reflected in her eyes, catching the moisture of threatening tears.
"Don't cry," Tom said. His wife looked back at him, and then their food came to save them.
They ate in silence, enjoying each other's company and the fact that there was not always the need for conversation. Tom often saw couples sitting in pubs or restaurants, not conversing, uncomfortable, obviously having nothing to say to each other. He and Jo had never been like that; their silence was merely another form of conversation. It said, I'm alright, I'm content, I love that you're here next to me. A big part of their being together was their ability to be on their own.
Later, Tom sipped some single malt while Jo had one more glass of wine. They had finished their meal and moved their chairs so that they both sat behind the table, looking into the pub. They watched the young couple struggle through a noisy dinner, bickering with their children and each other, leaving when the little boy began crying and refused to stop, whatever the parents offered him. Major Crisis remained at the end of the bar, slumping farther and farther down in his seat the more he drank. He was a quiet drunk, his moist eyes blinking slowly and heavily.
Tom began to feel tired, worn out by the journey here, but also troubled by the map and Nathan King's comments. Such a weight on his shoulders, unshared. Such a burden to carry, secret from his wife. And that lie by omission caused a form of mental exhaustion. For the first time in years there was something between them, blocking the total contact their minds enjoyed and demanded, and it was something that Tom had brought on himself. If only he had been able to take things as they were, accept whatever reality made life most comfortable. But he had never been one to shy away from truths hidden in the dark. Just as he liked to explore derelict houses or dingy basements, so he could never resist delving into mysteries secreted away in hidden corners of reality.
Somewhere not too far away from where they now sat, Steven may be buried. However disturbing that was—however wrong that made everything feel—it was something that Tom could never simply ignore for the sake of a quiet life.
But he would spare Jo that knowledge for as long as he could. Forever, perhaps.
Next morning, fate dealt Tom a powerful hand. Jo woke up with stomach cramps and reached the bathroom just in time to vomit. Tom went to her, held her, wiped her mouth, wanting to shy away from the stink but too concerned to do so. After a few more dry heaves she staggered back to bed, muttering about gone-off food or too much wine, and Tom sat beside her, stroking her hair.
"You think maybe this is all too much?" he asked.
"I don't think so, really, love," she said. "I wanted to come here, for us as much as Steven. I enjoyed our time together last night. I feel a little sad, and I'll have a weep this weekend, but I'm glad we came."
"You look glad," he said, pleased when she offered a weak smile.
"I feel bloody awful." She closed her eyes and sighed as Tom stroked her cheek.
A few minutes later, when Jo was almost asleep, Tom leaned down and whispered to her. "Do you mind if I go out?"
She shook her head. "No, go, go, leave me to sleep, I'll be fine," she mumbled, tiredness distorting her words.
Tom kissed her forehead, pleased to feel no fever there. It was bad food or too much wine, as she said. He would have never left her if she were truly ill, but now …
He picked up his book containing the map, closed the bedroom door quietly behind him, and hurried downstairs to gather his things. Food for lunch, money, walking boots, and a shovel he took from the lean-to shed behind the cottage.
I'll not be digging anything up. That's just fucking crazy. I'm not doing any digging. Of course I'm not.
But he put the shovel in the car boot anyway, glancing up to make sure Jo was not watching from the window. He closed the door and stood there for a while, listening to the sounds of the world waking up. Birds chirped, fallen leaves rustled, but his breathing was loudest.
As he drove away from the cottage he felt unreality settling around him. Part of it was being away from Jo, he supposed, and part of it was the map in his back pocket once again. But there was also a sense of foreboding, hanging over him like thunderclouds on the dawn horizon.
Did I really just put a shovel in the car boot?
He smiled and shook his head. But he could not dispel the sense of danger that accompanied him as he drove away, nor the feeling that his life was changing by the second.
He picked up a hiker's map at the post office on the outskirts of the village. It was an expanded Ordnance Survey map, with rights of way and footpaths added to enable walkers to find their way across the Plain. It also had a boxed key to one side, where local areas of interest were listed and coordinated with the map. As he sat in the car, the village behind him and the expanse of Salisbury Plain ahead, Tom felt the full desolation of that wild place opening up before him.
It was a beautiful autumn day. The sky was clear. The leaves remaining on trees were gold, orange and yellow, still clinging to branches but almost ready to fall; beauty in death. A mile from the village he pulled up on the grass verge, looked around to make sure he was totally alone and took out Nathan King's map.
It only took a couple of minutes to locate the area on the new OS map. The scales were different, but the coordinates were accurate, and Tom stared down at the point of his search. It was nowhere. There were no villages nearby, no farms, no signs of habitation or humanity whatsoever. Such a cold place to die. Such an empty place to be buried. He closed his eyes and saw Steven as a toddler, running through the local woods and swishing at fern heads with a stick, laughing back at Tom when he growled and clawed his hand and threatened to give chase.