He went into the hall and started to dial. He was only on the third digit when he got the feeling that something was wrong. The instrument seemed lifeless, as though the dialling mechanism was performing the motions but nothing else; no clicking into place, no sound of wires humming and picking up the message.
Peter's uneasiness increased. He finished dialling and listened. Silence. He tried again with fading hopes. Nothing.
Oh, Jesus Christ the fucking thing was dead! He slammed the receiver back, wanting to pummel it with his fists, smash it. But he didn't, because the prickling sensation was creeping back up his spine and into the nape of his neck, goose-pimpling his skin.
He glanced at the door and made certain the bolt was shot home. He'd check the downstairs windows too before he went upstairs. Just to be sure.
Outside he could hear the wind, a soft soughing noise that increased in volume even as he listened, buffeted the door as though it was trying to get in. Maybe it had got up earlier and he hadn't noticed it. It was a lot colder too, icy draughts seeming to come from a score of different directions. Suddenly autumn had become winter.
He had a sudden feeling that he wanted to dash outside, hurl himself behind the wheel of the Saab and drive like hell to put as many miles as possible between Hodre and himself.
Your phone's dead. The car might not start! Don't go outside, because you don't know what's lurking out there.
It was all in the mind. He was tired, over-worked. He knew there was nothing there that could possibly hurt him,
All the same he checked the doors and windows and went upstairs without even finishing his coffee. His fears would run riot if he didn't check them: his escalating terror; claustrophobia because he was trapped; agoraphobia because he wouldn't dare go out anyway. In the end he would go mad.
Peter flung himself down on the bed and tried to tell himself once again that it was all in the mind. But true or false, he was trapped here. Alone.
Peter had never found sleeping alone conducive to a good night's rest. He tossed and turned in the crumpled sheets, somehow dragging the blankets up from the bottom so that a cold draught from the ill-fitting window chilled his feet. He dozed fitfully, stretched out an arm that was habitually trained to encircle a sleeping partner and groaned to himself when he found that there was nobody there beside him.
It was morning; it had to be, because the room was filled with brilliant sunlight. He must have slept late. He dragged himself up into a sitting position, opened his eyes and immediately blinked them shut again, tensing because he still had the feeling that something was wrong, just like last night when he'd started to phone Janie.
It was too bright. Late November morning sunlight never reached this degree of intensity. He squinted, the glare hurting his eyeballs, forcing him to turn away momentarily, but that one glimpse had been enough. h was still dark outside and this dazzling light was artificial.'
Forcing his confused brain to work he slid out of bed, groped his way towards the window. Headlights, that's what it was, a vehicle parked in the lane outside with its lights on full beam and directed up at the bedroom window. A Land Rover maybe! He couldn't figure out how the driver had got the necessary elevation.
Then suddenly it was pitch dark again. Silence, not even an engine ticking over idly. Even the wind seemed to have dropped.
Peter reached the window and stood there looking out into the blackness of a mountain night. He saw only shooting lights like the magnificence of an aurora borealis as his eyes rebelled against the alternating brilliance and darkness. No, he hadn't dreamed it, because he could still feel the searing pain in his pupils, and see a kaleidoscope of colours that threatened to blind him.
And then the light was back again, a single white beam that hit him with the force of a water cannon, and made him stagger back and cover his eyes with his hands. Christ alive, what the hell was going on out there?
He stood back and forced himself to look. The light wasn't coining from the adjoining lane, that was a certainty. It came from somewhere on the fields abovewhich explained how it came to be directed down into the bedroom. A stationery vehicle (a Land Rover?) was parked downhill. It was deliberate aggro to stop him from getting to sleep, a continuation of everything that had happened so far. Wear him down, drive him out.
Peter found his clothes before the light went out again and the darkness plunged back, and struggled into them with an urgency fired by anger. Those bastards were back again, the ones who had killed the cat and the rabbit, and burned the trees in the circle. Well, spooks didn't use Land Rovers or high-powered lights! He'd go out there, take a look and possibly get the number of the Land Rover. That was all he needed: some evidence so that the police could take action and put a stop to it once and for all.
He grabbed the duffle coat on his way out, noticing that the atmosphere didn't feel cold any more. A typical still November night. He carried his torch but he didn't use it, not wanting to give his position away. The light would come on again for sure before long, but in the meantime he was familiar enough with the sheep track that led up towards the stone circle.
A strange sensation of timelessness in a dark empty world, walking through eternity, a black void which went on and on, that this was how it would be forever. Maybe it was a dream and he'd wake up and
A sudden shaft of white light blasted the darkness, a beam that came from beyond the fire-devastated trees and swung across the night sky like a searchlight seeking out enemy which looked down on the old druid circle when the landscape was plunged back into darkness.
He found himself crouching, moving forwards on tip-toe, the only sound the thumping of his heart and the racing of his pulses. A brief moment of fear, but he swamped it with anger. Whatever these people were doing, whoever they were, they were in for one helluva shock!
He had just topped the rise when the hillside was lit up again, this time with all the brightness of seaside illuminations. He saw every detail with the clarity of an artist's sketch laid out before him: a stark black and white landscape and the horrific scarred pines seeming to move, to beckon him, the dark mass of the forest above an army on the march, the forces of evil gathering to launch an assault now that the apocalypse was nigh.
Not just one light now; two, three. Criss-crossed beams latticed the pastureland, terrifying in their total silence like a wartime commando manoeuvre. Peter shielded his eyes and tried to pinpoint the source of the lights, but beyond them was a thick curtain of darkness.
He advanced, smelling the rancid odour of dead ash and feeling it crumbling beneath his feet. His brain was working fast, outlining a plan of action. Where there were lights there were men; he must single one out, approach furtively and surprise him. Or should he go back and call the police? No, the phone was dead and if he used the Saab the men would hear it and disappear whence they had come. There was only one course of action open to Peter, except for skulking in the cottageand he wasn't going to do that. There were a few scores to be settled and right now he was in the mood for doing just that.
He could sense rather than hear somebody moving about, a kind of stirring of the atmosphere that had him glancing around trying to figure out from which direction it came. There was total blackness again, which didn't help. Peter found himself crouching down, trying to hold his breath. Waiting.