'You deaf? I said get lost.'
'Ye gonny come quietly, ye wee besom, or ...'
Dissolve to interior. A treasure cave, with china and brass and gold. And the most beautiful, exotic woman you ever saw.
'My, you're quite a pretty child ... Now, I have something ... Think of it as a family heirloom ... Tell no one until you're grown ... Guard it with your life now!' This rich, glowing thing (which would be dull and grey to most people) heavy in your hand.
'You must remember this day, always. You will remember it, for you'll never be a wee girl again.'
And that night she had her first period.
Guard it with your life.
Moira sprang from her bed, snapped on the light. The guitar case stood where she'd left it, propped between a mahogany wardrobe and the wall. She dragged it out, lay it flat on the worn carpet, the strings making wild discordant protest as she threw back the lid, feeling for the felt-lined pocket, where might be stored such things as spare strings, plectrums, harmonicas.
And combs.
The door was tentatively opened, and Cathy appeared in rumpled pyjamas. 'What's wrong?'
Moira was shivering in a long T-shirt with Sylvester the Cat down the front.
'Moira, what's wrong?'
Moira's voice low and catarrhal, growly-rough, 'The broken window. Wasny just vandals.'
'You're cold.'
'Damn right I'm cold.'
'Come downstairs. I'll make some tea.'
Thrusting her hand again and again into the harmonica pocket. Nothing. She pulled out the guitar, laid it on the bed.
Turned the case upside down. Picked up the guitar and shook it violently, and listened to nothing rattling inside.
When, slowly, she straightened up, her back was hurting.
She felt arid, derelict. She felt old but inexperienced, incompetent. She felt like an old child.
Numbly, she reached behind the bedroom door for her cloak, to cover her thin, goosebumpy arms.
The cloak was not there. They'd taken that too.
Sam stumbled no more than twice. He knew his ground. Didn't need no fight, although he had the powerful police torch wedged in his jacket pocket, case he needed to blind anybody.
It was pissing down. Sam wore his old fishing hat, pulled down, head into the rain.
Never been raining when these buggers'd been up here before. They wouldn't like that. Be an advantage for him, two years windblasted, rained on, snowed on.
There was a moon up there, somewhere buried in clouds, so the sky wasn't all that black. When his eyes had adjusted he could see the outline of the hill, and when he got halfway up it he could make out a couple of faint lights down on the edge of Bridelow.
But no lights above him now.
Moving round so he'd come to the circle from the bit of a hump behind it, he climbed higher, a lone blue-white disc floating into view, vague through the rain and mist. Beacon of the Moss.
Bloody church. Bugger all use they'd been, pair of um.
When he came to the bracken, Sam stopped, stayed very still, listening. Thought by now he'd have seen their lights, heard some of the chanting, whatever they did.
Sam went down on his haunches, the rain spattering the bracken. Quietly as he could, he snapped shut the breech of the gun, jammed the butt under his elbow and crouched there, waiting.
The rain corning down hard and cold, muffling the moor, seeping through his jacket. Might've brought his waterproof, except the thing would have squeaked when he moved. Have a hot bath when he got in, slug or two of whisky.
Sam hefted the twelve-bore. His mouth felt dry.
They were here. He could feel it. They were close.
Bastards. Stay aggressive. Aggression generated heat and aggression was better than fear.
Right. Sam moved in closer. He reckoned he was no more than twenty yards from the circle; couldn't see it yet. Just over this rise.
They were there; no question. But were they lying low, expecting him? Had they somehow heard him coming?
Sam pulled in a deep breath, drawing in rainwater and nearly choking. He stuck his finger under the trigger guard and went over the rise like a commando, stopping just the other
side, legs splayed.
'All right, you fuckers!' he bawled. 'Nobody move!'
And nobody moved. Nothing. Not even a rabbit in the grass. Only the sound of the rain battering the bracken.
Holding the gun under his right arm, Sam fumbled for his torch, clicked it on, swirled the beam around, finding one, two, three, four, five stubby stones, a circle of thumbs jabbing out of the moor.
'Where are you? Fucking come out! I'll give you your bloody Satan!'
Not frightened now. Bloody mad. 'Come on!'
He thought about firing a shot into the bracken, case they were flattened out in there. But it wasn't likely, was it?
No, they'd gone. He switched off the torch, pushed it back in his pocket and did a 180-degree crouching turn, with the gun levelled.
Behind him, up on the moor, he glimpsed a fleeting white light. Didn't pause to think. Right. They're on the run. Move it.
Half-aware that he was departing from his own useless piece of moorland, Sam set off under a thickly clouded night sky with little light in it but an endless supply of black water; his jacket heavy with it and his faithful fishing hat, which once had been waterproof, now dripping round his ears like a mop rag.
He thought of his bed, and he thought of his kids and his wife, who he supposed he loved really, and he thought this was the stupidest bloody thing he'd do this year and maybe next, but...
... but them bastards were not going to get away with it, and that was that.
He tracked the light. Just one light, hazy, so probably a fair distance away. Heather under his boots now, waterlogged but better than the bracken, and the light was getting bigger; he was closing in, definitely, no question.
Two, three hundred yards distant, hard to be sure at night but the way the rain was coming down, crackling in the heather, there was no need to creep.
Sam strode vengefully onward.
Maybe it was due to forging on with his head down and his eyes slitted to keep the water out... maybe this was why Sam didn't realise for a few seconds that the light was actually coming, much more quickly, towards him.
A shapeless light. Bleary and steaming and coming at him through the rain ... faster than a man could run.
'Hey ... !' Sam stopped, gasping, then backed away, bewildered. His index finger tightened involuntarily and the gun went off, both barrels, and Sam stumbled, dropping it.