Cold Skies: A Psychological Thriller Read online

  On Paul’s left, their father Edward Manning – Ted, to his family and friends – sat with his arms folded, looking as if he owned the hospital. He was spry for his sixty-three years; his extremely short hair was still dark, his eyes still keen with the glare of business to be done, his voice heavy with northern humor. “I’m well used to hospitals by now,” he muttered. “I could write a book about them.”

  “That means you’ve been to see Mum,” Gareth said. “How is she?”

  “The same.” Ted didn’t elaborate, and Gareth didn’t ask.

  “More to the point, how are you getting on, Gareth?” Valerie fussed.

  “The leg’s slowly getting better. I’ll be up and about soon, when they take this brace off.”

  “Have the police told you anything new?” asked Paul.

  “Not much they can say. No other vehicle involved. No witnesses. We’ll see what the insurance company makes of it, and I’m keeping my fingers crossed.”

  “Bloody stupid night to go out,” Ted grumbled. “Why the heck were you driving around the Fens in the middle of the night, anyways?”

  From the look that Paul gave to Gareth, it was clear that the old man hadn’t been told the details of Gareth’s project. “I was on an assignment, Dad.”

  “Has Caroline been around?” Valerie asked brightly.

  “Oh yeah, she pops in almost every day. Have a look at this.” Gareth took the opportunity to distract attention away from his job to the presents and children’s pictures that Caroline had brought in.

  “That’s a nice shirt,” Valerie said, looking at the garment hanging next to the bed curtain. “Was that a present from Caroline?”

  “No, I got it in Hong Kong.”

  “Don’t be facetious,” Ted snapped. “She was only asking.”

  “But I did,” Gareth protested. “It’s an old shirt. I bought it on holiday a few years ago.”

  “You can get shirts like that in Millet’s, down Coldham’s Lane,” his dad continued. “There are probably more Chinese down Coldham’s Lane, as well.”

  “Oh isn’t he a hoot,” Gareth said, chuckling. “Dad, I’m really glad you could come.”

  “And see my own son in hospital? For being such a bonehead and smashing up his own car? I had to come, but I don’t want to make a habit of this, thank you very much.”

  “Don’t take it personally, Gareth, you know he doesn’t mean it,” Paul interrupted. “Anyway, we’ve been telling dad he should take more care of himself. Isn’t that so, dad?”

  “So the doctor says I’ve got bad circulation. So what? That’s nothing new.”

  “You’re still overweight, dad,” Gareth said.

  “And his blood pressure’s too high,” Paul said. “I’ve been telling him to take it easy, but does he listen?”

  “Well,” Ted countered, “another couple of years and it’s retirement for me, and I can take it easy then. When I get out of the bloody place.” He turned his gaze out of the window, a wistful expression on his face. “Another couple of years…”

  Couple of years to go and it could be like this, Gareth thought. Lying around all day.

  *

  The neck brace came off the next Monday, and the hard cast came off the day after, replaced by a softer ACE cast. Gareth was allowed to stand for the first time in over ten days, with crutches to help him.

  “Work on moving the ankle up and down, to reduce the swelling,” the doctor told him.

  Caroline had been there when the cast came off, and she had hurriedly looked away when the staples were exposed. Gareth couldn’t blame her; the combination of metal and discolored flesh was intimidating, to say the least. It didn’t hurt when the doctors took them out, though. It felt, surprisingly, like toenails being clipped.

  “Does it hurt?” Caroline asked.

  “No,” he grunted. “It just feels weird. Things are looking good, though.”

  Caroline glanced at the injured leg and then quickly looked away again. “You call that looking good?”

  “By comparison,” Gareth answered. He chuckled, and soon Caroline was smiling again.

  Then it was a goodbye kiss, and into the wheelchair, for more X-rays.

  *

  The days went past, and Gareth became increasingly more mobile. He went from visiting the toilet in a wheelchair to a pair of crutches. The physiotherapist didn’t need to push him much along the walking supports; Gareth was already imagining the grass of a rugby pitch beneath his feet. The nurses scolded him for wandering around the ward when he should have been resting.

  One drizzly afternoon, the new patient in the bed next to Gareth whistled at him and said, “Eh, mate. I heard where you crashed. You were out chasing those space aliens, weren’t you?”

  It was the first time Gareth realized there was gossip on the ward.

  “Now, don’t get me wrong,” the wiry, gap-toothed man continued. “I don’t think it’s queer. I reckon there’s aliens going around. I mean, we’ve only been sending things out into space for a few years, and we’ve done all right, haven’t we? So other folk could have been doing it for thousands of years. Who’s to say?”

  “That’s not exactly what I was involved in,” Gareth began, but wasn’t given a chance to continue.

  “You ever seen Doctor Who? Or Star Trek? I mean, it’s all coming true now, all that science fiction, isn’t it? Who’s to say it won’t? That Doctor Who, now, that was the best. Saturday afternoon teatimes, you had your footie results, the Basil Brush show, and then Doctor Who. Daleks, Cybermen and the Loch Ness Monster, that’s all I’m saying.”

  Gareth sighed and put his head back on the pillow. “I was more of a Thunderbirds kid myself.”

  “Oh aye yeah, that too. Virgil and Brains and whatshisname, Parker. ‘You rang, m’lady?’ Heh heh!”

  “Do you remember all those things that came out of the pods?” asked Gareth, warming to his subject. “Thunderbird Two’s pods? They were great, they were. Even if you could see the strings. The Mole and, er, the Firefly…”

  “That Lady Penelope, though, was she a bit of all right or what? Know what I mean?”

  “I used to get quite worked up about it,” Gareth confessed. “I mean, it was so dramatic and scary for a kid. Of course, you knew that they were going to save the day and rescue the people, but it all looked really serious. Virgil or Alan would get hurt sometimes, and I remember – it’s stupid when you look back, really, but I remember when things got really tense and dangerous, you could see little beads of sweat standing out on the puppets’ foreheads. Hah! The rocket would be about to explode, or the bridge would be about to collapse, and these puppets would get water sprayed on their foreheads for sweat, and their eyes would shift about in a really panicky way…”

  “That Gerry Anderson, mate,” his wardmate said, nodding. “The tops.”

  *

  Somehow, despite the distractions and physiotherapy, there was still so much time left for staring out of the window at the trees in the cold clear sunlight. For shuffling relentlessly up and down the ward, with that nagging feeling that there was something very important that he had to do, something he had to remember, if only he could figure out what it was.

  And there was the girl in the white robe, her blonde hair shining, her chubby face sad and a little serious. She waited patiently in his daydreams and took up residence in his sleeping hours.

  At night, Gareth would lie awake waiting for sleep, knowing he would see the girl again, trying not to listen to the urgent whispers from the bed next to his.

  “Eh! That Alan Tracy. Shagging Tin-Tin, or what?”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Sunday, February 4th 1996

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

  Night driving had always made him feel uncomfortable. Sometimes when driving through the limbo between English country towns, the streetlights ceased to exist, and the narrow lanes and lining of trees on either
side created a tunnel effect, giving any motorist the feeling of shooting down a long, winding tube.

  Tonight, however, was different. Tonight Gareth’s VW Polo moved along a flat, featureless plain, and he had the nagging fantasy that at any moment the car might shoot over the edge and plummet into empty space.

  This was the Fenlands. The mournful, somehow mysterious part of south England, east of Cambridge.

  Twin suns flared in the distance as the headlights of another car approached. Why can’t they ever dip their lights, Gareth thought irritably, this road’s bad enough without being dazzled. And that car looks pretty close to the middle of the road. Night driving can be bloody deceptive.

  As the oncoming vehicle got closer, Gareth realized it wasn’t near the middle – it was right in the middle, and sliding toward him…

  The shadowy bulk of rushing metal materialized behind the headlights, and Gareth swung the steering wheel to the left. The path swung away from him and the car lurched, filled with the sound of gears grinding and chafing. Gareth’s foot slammed down on the brake, and his torso jerked forward. To his right, the oncoming car skimmed past. Behind the lights, Gareth registered the pale blobs of faces, blurred by speed, with mouths distorted as they yelled at him derisively.

  Bastards, he thought. I’ll get those bastards later. Whoever they are, I’ll get them.

  Gareth sat in the stationary car, breathing heavily, cursing to himself. Radio One’s Mark Goodier was still cheerfully going on about the victories of Britpop as if nothing had happened, and Gareth switched him off with a surge of disgust. Put the car out of gear, he told himself, check the damage. The VW had stopped at a crazy angle to the path and the whole of the left-side bonnet dipped downward. Sitting in the silent darkness of the interior, releasing his safety belt, he felt the belated rush of adrenalin through his body. He took a long breath, waiting for his limbs to stop shaking.

  He opened the car door and a blast of cold air hit him in the face and plucked at his clothes. Zipping up his leather jacket, he stepped out of the car. He didn’t need to take out the flashlight to see what had happened.

  “Oh, no…”

  The near side wheel of the car had slid off the edge of a dyke, and was now suspended over a flow of inky, rank-smelling water. The wheel frame rested on the edge of the bank, causing the peaty rim to crumble and sink under the pressure.

  Well, it could have been worse, Gareth thought. Both wheels could have gone over.

  He looked back down the country road. The taillights of the offending car had winked out of sight, and the jeering had faded with them. But if I ever catch up with them again…

  With a sigh, he trudged around to the boot.

  Like a toy car abandoned in someone’s back garden, Gareth’s Volkswagen lay stranded in the middle of desolation. On either side of the road, plains of shadow swept away to the edge of the night sky, miles of darkness stretching away into the aching cold. There weren’t even any trees; those stunted silhouettes on the horizon surely didn’t count as trees. Above him, a blanket of sullen grey cloud pulled itself tighter around the moon. Gareth felt like he was at the bottom of a well.

  Dejectedly, he lifted the tire jack out of the boot and slammed the lid down. The cold air swept across the land and scraped at his hands, his face. “This is ridiculous,” he muttered.

  Getting back into the car, he pulled out his cellphone from its holder, and dialed. “Lynval? Hello Lynval, it’s Gareth. Sorry to bother you again, but I’ve had a little problem. Yeah, it’s to do with finding this place. You said the name was Wicken Fen B & B, right? On the A46? Well, I’ve been driving around for about an hour now, and as far as I can see, there’s nothing between here and Ely. And I mean nothing. Can you check the letters you got, in case I missed something? Thanks.”

  The voice came back on the line after a few seconds. “Yeah?” Gareth said in response. “That’s all there was? Well, I’ll see what I can do. Are you sure those guys are on the level? I could turn around and go home if you want. There’s something a bit iffy about all this.”

  Gareth yawned and stared out of the windscreen as he listened. “Yeah. I know the money’s already in the bank. It just seems like a lot of palaver over… okay, you’re the boss. I’ll give you a call tomorrow, from wherever I end up. Cheers, mate.”

  Outside again, he slipped thick leather gloves over his hands. This is not going to be a picnic, he thought. Last month – or maybe in December – he’d driven to Newmarket on a wet, blustery day. He remembered seeing a British Telecom engineer, squatting in a ditch by the side of the road. The man’s overalls were slick and shiny with rain, and he was staring at the handfuls of multi-colored spaghetti hauled from the Telecom point box with undisguised hatred. The engineer’s face returned to Gareth’s imagination as he began to viciously twist the tire iron. Now it’s my turn, he thought.

  Once he had the car jacked up, he turned to the problem of pushing it back onto the road.

  Walking around to the right-hand side of the car, he put his hands on the bonnet. The coldness of the metal pressed itself against his palms, even through the leather gloves. Bracing himself for the push, he thought about the lads who put him in this state and he hunched his shoulders forward and down. He let out a barking grunt – a grunt often heard on the rugby pitches of Cambridge city.

  His heels dug in for purchase in the resilient soil near the edge of the dyke. I hope there’s no ice, he thought, to make me slip and fall to my knees. He ground his teeth and closed his eyes as his muscles strained against cold metal, his arms burning, his legs and lower back locked. With a slow, rolling motion, the car moved backwards, and after a final push, the car was back on solid ground.

  Straightening up, Gareth flexed his arms, then swung them round in a windmill motion. I might be stiff after this afternoon’s match, he thought proudly, but I can still get the job done when I need to. Shivering, he trotted around the car and climbed back into the warm.

  With the road still deserted in front and behind him, he picked up his phone again, staring at Caroline’s number. No, he thought after a few seconds, I’d better not tell her about this, it’ll only worry her. I said I’d call her tomorrow, I’ll stick to that.

  Instead, he chose the next number he had on speed-dial.

  “Dave? Hello mate, it’s Gareth, how’re you doing? Listen, I’m out near Ely, and you’ll never guess what’s happened…

  “Wicken Fen B & B. You’ve never heard of it either? I don’t fancy my chances of finding it tonight…

  “… about your water heater. If the water’s still coming down into the airing cupboard, then the problem must be that old tank. I told you before, you need to get that fixed. Did you know you can get a paint that can line the bottom of the tank and seal it? Straight up, mate, it’s non-toxic…

  “… yeah, I’ve set the timer to record the fight tonight as well, but you know it’s been playing up, I might be around next week to watch it with you. I’ll let you know. Cheers then… speak to you later…”

  He hung up. Immediately, the solitude pressed down upon him, and as a reflex he switched on the radio. Babylon Zoo again – “Spaceman.” Stick a tune on a Levi’s TV commercial, and it gets everywhere, he thought in disgust. Turning the car round, he started to drive back the way he had come.

  At length, he came to the gleaming ribbon of light that was the A142, unwinding itself between Ely and Chatteris. He drove back in the Ely direction, running memories through his mind, trying to figure out where he’d missed the turning. On the radio, the riff started for “Whole Lotta Love” – not Zeppelin, the new Goldbug cover version. Give me strength, he thought.

  Eventually Gareth spotted a signpost that indicated the way to Coveney. Maybe they don’t like strangers in Coveney, he thought; maybe that’s why the signpost’s so covered in mud nobody can read it.

  Swinging off the A142, he found himself once more cruising through a flat, featureless nowhere, and he
was struck with the idea of aiming his car at one of the coldly glittering stars that hung close to the treeless horizon.

  About seven miles along the road, something distinguished itself from the all-encompassing darkness. A small group of houses, with clumps of bony trees around and between them. The village gave the impression of a group of sullen travelers huddling together for shelter against the wind.

  “This must be the place…” he muttered.

  Slowing down, Gareth cruised through something that made ‘high street’ sound like a euphemism. A shape reared up ahead – stone limbs, stone head, sightless stone eyes – a statue on the village roundabout. Taking the left fork, Gareth noticed a small track leading down to a five-bar gate and an intimidating hedge. Noticing no caution signs nearby, he steered his car into the track and parked.

  Outside the car, it was perhaps more silent in the village than it had been out in the Fenlands. Walking down the high street, his footsteps crunching on the frosty gravel and his breath blowing fumes of condensation in front of him, he observed the handsome little cottages on either side, the houses that looked as perfect as confectionery boxes. He pictured them lined up in an estate agent’s window, and imagined writing the captions himself.

  As handsome as they were, however, there were no lights in any of them. At the end of the road, he came across a building with a broken neon sign above the entrance; he read the shadowy inscription, WICKEN FEN B&B.

  Well, he’d found it at last – and there was even a light on behind the front door. He pushed it open and prepared for his first contact with Coveney society.

  “Hello? Hello?”

  The parlor was extremely small and, predictably enough, empty. There was a closed door directly in front of him; he opened it and found with a twinge of irritation that it led to a toilet. The other option was an archway to the left; he ducked his head as he walked through.