Cold Skies: A Psychological Thriller Read online

  COLD SKIES

  by

  ZOE DRAKE

  Text copyright © Zoe Drake and Excalibur Books

  All Rights Reserved

  Cover design by Germancreative (link provided on request)

  Formatting by Stef McDaid at WriteIntoPrint

  Sign up to the Excalibur Books mailing list to stay updated on new releases and campaigns, or follow the author on Twitter at @excaliburbooks or Facebook at Zoe Drake.

  Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  THE MISTS OF OSOREZAN by Zoe Drake

  Acknowledgements

  Dedicated with love and thanks

  to all at the Ambassador Lodge, Milton, Cambridge.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Monday, February 11th, 1996

  This is not where I’m supposed to be, thought Gareth Manning.

  Immobilized in a hospital bed, his right leg in a plaster cast suspended at forty-five degrees in front of him, he was a captive audience for the pallid, tired-looking doctor standing in front of the bed. She pulled the black X-ray film from its manila envelope and held it up, pushing it against the portable light screen, so that Gareth could see it. Two solid columns of white stood out against the black of the negatives; white columns with black lines straight as razor slashes running diagonally across them.

  “We’ll take the bad news first, Mr. Manning,” she said.

  Gareth glanced to his left. Seated next to his bed, Caroline sat with a notepad and biro, ready to take notes. Her freckled face looked pale and pinched with tension, like the doctor’s. Everyone’s been through the wars, thought Gareth. Because of me…

  “The bad news is, you have fractures in both your fibula and femur, the lower and upper legs. The good news is that they are oblique fractures. The surgery yesterday was a success, so you’ll be able to heal completely.”

  Gareth felt, rather than heard, a sigh of relief escape his throbbing chest and throat.

  “In yesterday’s operation, we put ten screws in your right leg and we’ll take them out about two weeks from now. There are no vertebral fractures. There was considerable stress on your spinal vertebrae, however, so you’ll be in that neck brace for a few days.”

  “Is that because of whiplash?” Caroline asked, taking notes as quickly as she could.

  “No, the car was upside down, and Mr. Manning’s body was pressing on his head and neck. It could have been a lot worse. There was hardly any water in the lungs, either. But to get back to the injuries… There’s a hairline fracture in your clavicle, which is no surprise because it’s one of the most fragile bones in the body, but your pelvic bone is intact. There are no cranial fractures, but you’ve got concussion, so expect headaches and dizziness over the next few days, although your medication for that has already started.”

  “What about his face?” Caroline asked.

  The doctor frowned. “Are you worried about damage caused by hitting the steering wheel? There are no broken bones.”

  “No, I mean…”

  Gareth looked sideways, panic seeping through the drugs they had pumped him with. Oh my God, what’s happened to my face? he thought. What’s Caroline looking at?

  “I mean… it’s all red.”

  “Yes, it does look a little like sunburn doesn’t it? That’s probably exposure. The wind can affect the skin, especially a cold wind, which is why people have to be so careful when they’re skiing.”

  Caroline nodded and met Gareth’s eyes, her expression pained. Her little girl, Jenny, wasn’t with her – thankfully. When she’d entered the room, she’d told Gareth that Jenny was a friend’s house for the afternoon. Gareth could see why; this would be far too scary and upsetting for a seven-year-old to witness, even if it was mostly good news.

  “So basically Mr. Manning,” the doctor summed up, “it’s going to be RICE for the next few weeks.”

  “RICE?”

  “Yes. Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation. You’ll be in the ward for observation, and we’ll know for how when we do the second round of surgery, and take your screws out.”

  “When will that be?” Caroline asked, before Gareth could.

  “In about a week’s time.”

  Although he could not turn his head, Gareth could move his eyes and see Caroline smiling bravely at him. She didn’t speak.

  She didn’t have to.

  *

  The pills helped with the pain.

  They dulled any itches or tingling he might have had, so he didn’t try to claw at his own skin. Instead, Gareth felt veiled in a kind of mist.

  He felt himself becoming inconsistent, as if the substance of his body was starting to lose different and spread out vaguely all through the ward around him. As if he were becoming vapory, milky, weightless. The lack of action was dissolving him.

  When the feeling of dissolution became so strong he feared for his own identity, Gareth tried to move his head. Then the pain stabbed though his skull suddenly, like the accident itself must have hurt him (don’t think about car crashes! his mind warned). He moved against his neck brace, and the pain fell on him like a lightning flash, striking though the boredom of a slow grey February afternoon.

  With the pain Gareth rediscovered reality. His body was returned to him, he knew where he was. He was out of his boredom, returning to the world – even if his current world were the confines of a single ward.

  Gareth tried to identify exactly where he was in time in space. In Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge… the digital clock on the wall said 15:22.

  Through the window, the limbs of skeletal trees waved sluggishly in the damp air.

  From his immobile vantage point – the ward was on the second floor – no more of the grounds of Addenbrooke’s could be seen. Just the dappled barks of the elms, and their boughs, and the tops of other trees that had not yet reached the heights of the elms.

  Sunlight suddenly gilded the window-frame, through a rare gap in the covering of featureless cloud above the trees. The cold twigs outside flared in the brisk illumination.

  Blonde hair, slightly wavy at the ends, the eyes large and moist–

  He stirred restlessly in his bed.

  The duty nurse called to him as she walked past; “Mr. Manning? Your visitor’s here.”

  His eyes moved sideways, and saw her advancing down the aisle of anonymous patients, a faintly embarrassed look on her face. She wore a quilted jacket and a pinkish top that he couldn’t remember having seen before. Her hair was different; she’d had it permed, and it curled in dark glossy lengths around her shoulders and neck. She obviously still couldn’t get rid of that stubborn little kiss-curl above her right eye, though.

  “Hello,” she said, holding up the large bunch of red, yellow and pink flowers she was carrying.

 
“Hello Dawn,” he said.

  Putting the flowers on the bed, she sat down in the chair provided for visitors and said, “Well, wounded soldier! Look what I’ve got for you.” From her tote bag, she proceeded to pull out a range of goodies. A big card in a white envelope, a paper bag full of assorted fruit, a box of chocolate-coated ginger…

  “These are from the Hotel Chocolat Factory Shop over at St Neots. You’re still quite partial to chocolate ginger, aren’t you?” she said.

  “You shouldn’t have, Dawn.”

  “Yes, I should. I wanted to come sooner but… They told me you were unconscious.”

  “Over the weekend, yeah.”

  She busied herself putting the flowers in the vase on the bedside table. “How are they looking after you?” she asked.

  “Oh, pretty good. I’m on the mend. I suppose this looks a bit bad, what with the neck brace and leg and all, but with the medication. it doesn’t hurt much. Only when I laugh – arf, arf!” Gareth grimaced in an imitation of pain.

  “What’s the food like?”

  “Not bad, despite what you might think. They bring in frozen meals here and microwave them to order. Today was prawn, cauliflower and broccoli bake, with mint new potatoes… they even had jam sponge for dessert. I had lamb Rogan Josh yesterday. Haven’t eaten that for ages.” He grinned upwards at her, and she smiled back, but he could tell that her eyes weren’t smiling.

  “Oh yes,” he went on. “I’m trying to keep my mind active as well as my stomach. Caroline brought in a load of books to read. I can’t move my head much, but at least I can hold a book up in front of my eyes.” He waved at the paperback on the bedside table, and dawn picked it up.

  “High Fidelity, by Nick Hornby,” she read from the cover. “I remember all the reviews when this came out. Any good?”

  “It’s a real hoot, I love it. So how’s things with you?” Gareth asked, eager to change the focus of attention.

  “Oh, well… you know. I’ve been down with a bit of a cold.”

  “Flu?”

  “No, only a sore throat and sniffles. Don’t worry, I’m not going to breath my germs all over you!”

  Gareth smiled back. “How’s work?”

  A flicker of irritation. “Oh, I don’t want to talk about it. The new manager’s clueless. On the plus side, though, yesterday I took a day off and went to the Norfolk Woods Resort, over at King’s Lynn. They’ve got a wonderful spa over there, it’s so refreshing. All the stress just melts away. It’s lovely.”

  As she spoke to him, Gareth noticed that her eyes looked unfocused. She obviously wasn’t concentrating on what she was saying. There was a slackness to her mouth, as if she were slowly forgetting how to smile.

  “You’re looking at my face, aren’t you?” Gareth suddenly asked.

  Caught out, Dawn shifted nervously in her seat. “Yes, actually I was. Gareth – that really was a bad crash, wasn’t it?”

  Gareth smiled wistfully at her. “Yes, love, it was pretty serious. I don’t mind talking about it now, I’m on the mend, but it was pretty nasty. The car’s a write-off. Don’t worry about these scabs, though. They won’t leave scars and spoil my good looks.”

  “But your skin still looks quite, er, inflamed,” she said bluntly.

  “Oh, that? The doctors said it’s exposure.”

  “Exposure?”

  “Yeah, it’s bloody freezing out there, you know, in the Fens. Especially in the middle of the night. When you’re soaking wet.”

  “Gareth, I’m sorry, I was only concerned. I didn’t mean to–”

  “No, it’s okay. I don’t mind talking about it. Honest.”

  “Well…” Dawn smoothed down her skirt, looked around the hospital ward, and then straight at Gareth.

  “What happened?”

  Gareth stared back at her. As he’d said, he didn’t mind talking about the accident. The frustrating thing was, there was so little to tell. His memory of Friday night ended with the car sliding through darkness – and began again on Sunday, when he’d woken up in this hospital bed.

  “The car skidded on a patch of ice. It went off the road, and turned over into a ditch. It wasn’t too deep… I managed to get out of the car, and back onto the road. I must have passed out… a truck driver found me wandering around at four in the morning.”

  “Wandering around? How could you be wandering around if you’d passed out?”

  “Sorry, I don’t know why I said that. The truck driver found me in the middle of the road, he had no trouble spotting me. But I couldn’t talk. And I couldn’t remember anything. It was shock, you see.”

  “Gareth, were you speeding?”

  Her face, her tone…

  “Were you?”

  “No! I told you, the roads were covered in ice. It could have happened to anyone.” He crossed his arms defensively. “The next thing I know is waking up here.”

  Dawn stared at him for a long moment and then broke her gaze, picking up the chocolate gingers and pulling off the wrapping. “Well, shall we try them?”

  They chatted over the chocolates and fruit, with Gareth trying to steer the conversation to less traumatic matters.

  “How’s Caroline taking all this?” Dawn finally asked.

  “Shocked and worried of course, as you could imagine, but she’s looking after me just fine.”

  “That can’t be easy,” Dawn said archly, “with looking after her kid, as well.”

  “She’s doing fine. She pops in here as often as she can.”

  “Oh, that’s good.” Dawn turned her head to look out the window, her lips in a tight line.

  Gareth smiled wryly. “So is there anyone new in your life?”

  “No, and I’m not looking for anyone else yet. I feel like a bit of… freedom, at the moment.” Her face brightened as she confidently returned his gaze.

  After she’d kissed him and left, Gareth settled back into his pillow and bed-sheets, feeling warmer and relaxed.

  She still cared.

  Well, he knew that she had always cared, but this time there was nothing clinging about it. Gareth was alive, and his ex-wife seemed relatively happy. They had nothing to regret.

  His smile turned to a frown as faint thoughts scratched at the back of his mind. Was that it? Dawn was happy again. Or had he missed something?

  It was a feeling similar to when the divorce papers were being worked out. Gareth’s ‘lack of perceptiveness’ was something that kept being mentioned. Well, this is neither the time nor the place to worry about that, he thought moodily.

  He had more to worry about now; things like getting better, working with the physiotherapists, getting enough rest, getting enough sleep.

  Sleep.

  *

  When he slept the night after Dawn’s visit, he dreamt he was nine years old again.

  He was at the dentist’s clinic, about to have his wisdom teeth removed. The dentist’s face hung over his, upside down, eyes behind spectacles with chunky black frames, his nose and mouth hidden behind the surgical mask.

  “This will just make you go to sleep,” said the dentist’s muffled voice.

  He held up a bulb-shaped nozzle of black rubber, and pressed it gently down over Gareth’s own nose and mouth.

  “Now count down from one hundred, please! Ninety-nine… ninety-eight…”

  He got to ninety-two.

  Nobody told him, though, that he would vomit as soon as he woke up, and have the smell of rubber in his sinuses for days afterwards. He dreamed in that peculiar gas-sleep, but they weren’t like dreams; more like pictures, images that scared him because he couldn’t explain them. He was dreaming about his childhood nightmares… within his hospital dream.

  *

  The next day was a Thursday. The breakfast and afternoon talk shows, on the TV at the foot of his bed, were full of the news of boy band Take That splitting up and pursuing solo projects. The UK government, they said, had set up counsel
ing telephone lines to help the millions of distraught teenagers trying to cope with the trauma.

  Gareth smiled quietly, motionless in his cocoon of leg cast and neck brace. Distraught, he thought. Trauma.

  The winter trees waved their long bony branches at him, behind the window, beneath the sterile gold light that peaked and faded and eventually gave way to darkness.

  The sunlight reminded him of the girl.

  He saw the girl in dreams almost every night – or morning; he seemed to dream of her in the last few moments before he awoke. She was young, blonde, and petite; she looked a bit like his current girlfriend Caroline, as she might have looked when she was a child, because her hair was also cut in a pageboy style. She had regular, dainty features, and from the delicate softness of her skin, and the gentle puppy-fat roundness of her cheeks and chin, she must have been about fourteen years old.

  She wore a white dress of some kind – like pajamas, a hospital robe, or even a toga – and she always stood very silent and still. In the dream, they were inside a building of some kind, and the girl stood in the path of light shining through a window. The brightness falling upon her turned her hair into spun gold.

  So strong was the memory of this recurring dream, that Gareth could almost see her in broad daylight if he imagined her clearly. He was puzzled, but glad there was no sex in the dream. The girl was obviously a teenager, and he didn’t want to end up like James Mason in the guy in that old black and white film Lolita.

  He kept thinking about what the girl had said.

  “You don’t have to kill time in hospital, Mr. Manning,” she had said last night – or had it been the night before?

  “Time will die all by itself.”

  *

  At the weekend, Gareth’s Dad and one of his brothers came down from Buxton up in the north, to see him again. It was Paul, the estate agent, who turned up with his wife, Valerie. Paul was short, and slightly built, his face given character by a curly mess of beard. Valerie carried an impressive bag’s worth of munchies, and sat beside Paul, her thin face anxious beneath the mane of chestnut-brown hair. They’d first come down a couple of days after Gareth had been admitted. He had barely recognized them.